MOSCOW, April 14 (Xinhua) -- The Russian audience of Asian messaging apps grew 60 percent in March amid a slowdown in activity on Telegram, Kommersant reported on Monday.
Among Asian platforms, Chinese WeChat, South Korean KakaoTalk and Turkish BiP recorded the strongest growth in popularity among Russian users, the report said, citing data from telecom operator MTS.
WeChat's Russian user base saw particularly rapid expansion earlier this year, with daily activity increasing by 67 percent from January to February, said the report.
"The growth of Asian messengers is driven by their minimalist interface, low data consumption, and built-in content-sharing tools," said Ivan Goryachev, manager of the educational project Servicepipe.
Alexey Kozlov, a leading analyst at the Spikatel cyber threat monitoring center, said WeChat is attractive to Russian users because it integrates payments, social networking features and mini-apps in a single platform.
However, he noted that many functions remain restricted without a Chinese phone number or verification from users in China. ■
