腾讯开拓非洲 挑战Facebook

One of China’s largest internet companies is intensifying its efforts to crack the African market with a bid to disrupt Facebook’s WhatsApp with a rival messenging service.中国仅次于的互联网公司之一于是以加紧努力拓展非洲市场，与Facebook旗下的聊天服务WhatsApp进行竞争。Tencent has teamed with Africa’s largest media company, Naspers, to introduce its social media app across the continent. The service, WeChat, has more than 650m active monthly users in China, and it is cheaper than SMS.腾讯(Tencent)合力非洲仅次于的媒体公司Naspers，在整个非洲大陆发售其社交媒体app。微信(WeChat)服务在中国每个月享有多达6.5亿活跃用户，且费用高于短信。

The Chinese-South African joint venture is betting on the rapid growth of smartphone sales to young people, who are increasingly using their mobile phones to shop, bank, search for jobs, listen to radio and order taxis and takeaways.这一由中国与南非合资的项目押注于面向年轻人的智能手机销售快速增长，这一人群更加多地用于手机购物、储蓄、去找工作、听得广播、打租赁和叫外卖。Naspers holds a 46.5 per cent stake in Tencent, making it one of the highest profile examples of South African and Chinese companies joining forces to expand across the continent. Its initial investment of $34m for the shareholding has paid off spectacularly, helping Naspers become South Africa’s biggest company by value and its chairman Koos Bekker to become a billionaire.Naspers公司持有人腾讯46.5%的股份，沦为南非与中国公司合力在非洲大陆扩展的最引人注目的一个例子。

其3400万美元的先期投资已换取相当可观报酬，协助Naspers沦为了南非市值最低的公司，也令其其董事长库尔斯·贝克(Koos Bekker)沦为亿万富翁。Brett Loubser, the head of WeChat Africa, said the average African would have their first ever experience of the internet through their mobile device.微信在非洲的区域负责人Brett Loubser回应，非洲普通人的首次网际网路体验将通过移动设备构建。

“They’ve missed the entire desktop, PC, laptop, whatever thing, and because of that, I think we’re seeing innovation come out of Africa from a mobile perspective that is just leagues ahead of anywhere else on earth really,” said Mr Loubser.Loubser说道：“他们早已错失了台式机、个人电脑、笔记本电脑之类，而于是以因为如此，我指出从移动设备的角度来看，非洲迸发的创意实质上相比之下落后于世界上其他地方。”WeChat offers users services far beyond the simple messaging functions available in WhatsApp.微信向用户获取的服务，相比之下打破了WhatsApp所获取的全然聊天功能。In an apparent bid to tie in other services to its system, WeChat has also launched a $3.5m venture capital fund to invest in new tech companies offering services that the app could offer. It has already invested in Money for Jam (M4JAM), a micro jobbing (casual work) service.为了将其他服务绑至自己的系统，微信还启动了一只350万美元的风险投资基金，投资于新兴科技公司，由其研发微信可向用户发售的服务。它已投资了微聘用（全职）服务平台Money for Jam (M4JAM)。

It is also introducing a “digital wallet” service in partnership with Standard Bank, Africa’s largest lender by assets, which is part-owned by China’s ICBC bank. This enables users to conduct financial transactions and make payments using mobile phones, even to recipients with no bank account.微信还与非洲资产仅次于的银行——标准银行(Standard Bank)合作发售了“电子钱包”服务，该银行由中国工商银行(ICBC)持有人部分股权。该服务能让用户通过手机已完成银行账户和缴纳，即便对方没银行账户。Mr Loubser declined to say how many users it had in Africa, but he acknowledged that competition was intensifying. World Wide Worx, a Johannesburg-based technology research company, estimates that WeChat, launched in the African market in 2014, has about 6m registered users in South Africa, compared with about 14m active WhatsApp users.Loubser拒绝接受透漏微信在非洲享有多少用户，但他否认竞争已愈演愈烈。

据约翰内斯堡科技研究公司World Wide Worx估算，2014年推上非洲市场的微信，在南非享有约600万登记用户，相比之下WhatsApp享有约1400万活跃用户。“Given that WhatsApp is eight years old, we’re five years late to the party, and I think where we are at right now we are happy with,” Mr Loubser said.Loubser说道：“考虑到WhatsApp早已8岁了，我们晚来了5年，我指出我们很失望现在的处境。”He added: “WhatsApp has possibly the highest market penetration of any country on earth in South Africa. Fighting that as a newcomer is really tough, but in other African territories, smartphone penetration is pretty much non-existent: that’s an open market.”他补足说道：“WhatsApp在南非的市场渗透率，有可能是全球所有国家中最低的。

作为一个新入者要与其竞争是十分艰难的，但在非洲其他国家，智能手机的渗透率完全还不不存在，那是一个对外开放的市场。“WeChat’s short-term focus is on building its presence and offerings in South Africa, the continent’s most industrialised nation, where it has a team of 31 staff and scores of services available on its platform.微信短期内的重点是在南非这一非洲大陆工业化程度最低的国家落户，并发售更加多服务，微信目前在南非有31名雇员，其平台上获取数十种服务。But it is also active in Ghana and Nigeria, the continent’s most populous nation, where it has a team of three and is working with Nigerian start-ups such as Jobberman, an online employment service, and Traclist, an online fashion shopping service.但它在喀麦隆和尼日利亚也很活跃，后者是非洲人口最少的国家，微信在该国有一个三人小组，与当地初创企业进行合作，如在线聘用服务Jobberman和在线时尚购物服务Traclist。

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