By
Svetlana Soroka
April 18th, 2024
Morphing from Twitter into X, the new super app will offer users multiple services and will effectively be the WeChat of the West.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that the microblogging website will rebrand to X sometime in the near future. Elon Musk responded with “True” to a tweet announcing the forthcoming rebranding. According to the tweet, the new X platform will do much more than allow users to send short tweets. Users will be able to enjoy long text, messaging, video, and varying financial services.
Twitter Inc Is Now X
According to a document filed at a federal court in California, the “Twitter Inc.” name has been retired. The filing confirms that Twitter is now a part of X, which is part of a parent holding company. The document reads:
“ …Twitter, Inc. has been merged into X Corp, and no longer exists. X Corp. is a privately held corporation. Its parent corporation is X Holdings Corp. No publicly traded corporation owns 10% or more of the stock of X Corp. or X Holdings Corp.”
The recent confirmation is not Musk’s first time referencing the X app. In October last year, Musk tweeted that buying Twitter would accelerate the creation of “X, the everything app”. Although there are no official specifics of an X interface, Musk has said enough to create a working picture.
X: The WeChat of the West
X will be a super app – an app that integrates multiple seemingly unrelated services in one place. At his first town hall meeting with Twitter staff last year, Musk said he wants X to be a super app like WeChat. According to him:
“There’s no WeChat equivalent out of China…There’s a real opportunity to create that.”
Owned by Tencent Holdings Ltd (HKG: 0700), WeChat is a super app that began as an instant messaging app for smartphones in 2011. Over the years, it has expanded its offerings such that users can do everything from buying groceries to scheduling doctors’ appointments. So far, no app anywhere in the West functions as sufficient competition.
Speaking in a March interview, Musk told Morgan Stanley managing director Michael Grimes that he has lofty plans for X. He specifically said X could “become the biggest financial institution in the world”, where users can send money “effortlessly with one click”.
As of March, WeChat had more than 1.3 billion monthly active users (MAU) and is expected to hit 1.671 billion this year. In January 2019, the platform recorded 45 billion daily messages. In July 2021, a quarter of all users spent more than 4 hours on the app each day.
According to experts, Musk’s super app goal would face serious challenges. Analysts speaking to CNN said the competition is fierce as other giants like TikTok, Facebook, WhatsApp, and YouTube are all trying to become super apps. In addition to the competition, they also noted that regulation would make it difficult for authorities to allow the kind of monopoly X will attain if it succeeds.