Tencent Developing QQ Emoticon Open Platform
TechWeb, 10/21/13
Chinese internet and mobile services firm Tencent (0700.HK) revealed at a recent developer conference held by the company's Social Networking Group that Tencent is undergoing development of an emoticon design open platform. The open platform will include designs from the company's original emoticons, third-party designers, and emoticon design contest winners. The open platform will be integrated with the QQ Emoticon store, and will be commercialized after launch. The emoticon design open platform will not provide emoticon management tools for developers after their submission of emoticon designs. All designs will be vetted and given final upload by Tencent.
Tencent operates a three-pronged business model for QQ emoticons: 1) outright purchase of the rights to the emoticon design, with no further compensation to the designer during the licensing period; 2) base design fee (paid by Tencent) and additional royalties from downloads; and 3) a pure profit sharing model that pays Tencent 30% of monthly revenues totaling below RMB 20,000, 50% for monthly revenues between RMB 20,000 and RMB 100,000, and 60% for monthly revenues exceeding RMB 100,000.
In April, Tencent launched the PC version of the QQ Emoticon store with 12 emoticon packages, and on July 2, Tencent launched the mobile version of the QQ Emoticon store. At present, the PC-based QQ emoticon store has 30 emoticon packages, while the mobile version has more than 10. In the future, QQ's emoticon development will be more mobile client-focused, with real person emoticons (as opposed to cartoons) as well as audio-enabled emoticons.
QQ has partnered with over 200 animation firms and emoticon designers to release emoticon packages. Daily active users of original QQ emoticons total 100 mln, and more than 5 bln QQ emoticons are sent per day. The QQ Emoticon store boasts a daily active user base exceeding 5 mln, registering more than 100,000 emoticon package downloads per day.
QQ and Tencent's WeChat (Weixin) mobile messaging application currently have independent emoticon markets with different business models. A majority of emoticon packages on WeChat's emoticon store are priced at RMB 6, while QQ's emoticons are mostly provided as free downloads.
Keywords: wireless Tencent QQ business model 0700.HK open platform instant messaging revenue share emoticon
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