Elon Musk is attempting to make X into an "all-encompassing app," following a trend popularized in China and now seen across Asia. His motivation is presumably Tencent's WeChat, which counts over 1.3 billion users and has been highly praised by the billionaire. To mark the transformation, Musk switched Twitter's famous bird logo to an "X."
Last October, when Elon Musk was in the process of acquiring Twitter, the billionaire announced that he intended to develop the platform into what he referred to as an "everything app"--without providing further details. Comparisons with Chinese giant Tencent's messaging service, WeChat, were drawn soon after. Upon completion of the purchase, Musk officially changed Twitter's bird logo to an "X," making evident his intent to alter the app into something far beyond being merely a social media service. On Monday, Musk reiterated his “everything app” goal, mentioning that the acquisition was primarily meant to facilitate the move towards it. As Linda Yaccarino, the newly-appointed CEO of the company, stated, “X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities.”
Musk and Yaccarino's objectives appear to mimic the notion of a "super app" that was initiated in China, and has since become popular in other parts of Asia.
Super apps are popular applications that empower users to carry out a multitude of tasks without ever needing to leave the platform. The most prominent of these ideas is called WeChat, which is owned by Chinese technology enterprise Tencent and has over 1.3 billion users. WeChat is akin to messaging app WhatsApp, however it provides further features like payments and other apps within it such as banking and e-commerce. The super app idea has become more popular in other Asian countries behind China, including Singapore's ride-hailing firm Grab and South Korea's Kakao.Elon Musk seemingly drew his ideas from WeChat after he commented about how users "live on WeChat" in China, and the lack of a similar app outside of the country. His idea is that if Twitter or any other app were to adopt a similar approach it would be a massive success.
The particular configuration of the Chinese internet landscape, which excludes many U.S. web services, including Twitter and Google, opened the door for domestic technology companies to seize control of the online space, resulting in WeChat flourishing in China.
Tencent is one of the top players in the digital market, having created the largest messaging service in the country with WeChat. WeChat Pay is the second largest mobile payments service in the country, behind Alipay which is operated by Ant Group, an affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba. Tencent has achieved this feat by integrating their services with WeChat as well as investing in other major businesses like JD.com and Meituan. Furthermore, Tencent is a leading online gaming company, offering a variety of content within WeChat. Developers can also make use of "mini programs" within WeChat, enabling users to access multiple services from a single platform.
In parts of southeast Asia, Grab has created "super apps" in the absence of several competing firms, providing services such as financial services and food delivery. Unfortunately, creating a similar super app in the U.S. or Europe might be much more difficult. Online payments are fragmented, with no single company controlling the industry. Additionally, payment methods differ, with QR codes being the most popular in China compared to debit and credit card systems of payment in the U.S. and Europe. There is also extensive competition in the ride-hailing and food delivery space. Moreover, collaboration with other firms would be difficult due to the presence of other social media companies like those under Meta's umbrella.
Aside from the challenges, there is also an opportunity for X in that Musk aims to make it a broader communication app rather than just offering short posts. This can be seen from the increased character limits for post subscribers of Twitter Blue. With this in mind, Musk could proceed to integrate other tools such as payments. However, succeeding in creating a WeChat-like super app in the U.S. or Europe would be difficult due to factors such as China's mobile-first market or the numerous players in the internet space.