WeChat, the most popular messaging app from China, is heading towards to advertising world.

Earlier this week, Tencent, operator of WeChat, announced its launch of new service in mainland China. Companies that have WeChat accounts can pay ad fees when placing their ads on other affiliated pages of Tencent with more than 100,000 followers.

Like Us on Facebook

Tencent and other affiliated companies hosting the ads on their pages will share the ad fees.

WeChat's main function is instant messaging but also features Facebook-like profile and users who can also share their photos. The corporate companies using WeChat can also set their account for free and gain followers; just like Twitter.

Their new service is still in beta version and Tencent's goal for the new service is to make money using WeChat. Currently, WeChat has 400 million active users and most of them are from China.

The new WeChat service offers a different ad placement. Companies' ads are not distributed like instant messaging. Instead, WeChat places them at the bottom of corporate pages.

Tencent said companies will be using age, gender, location and other personal interests to specify their target market.

After specifying the target market, Tencent will decide what corporate pages will be used to host the ads.

Just like WeChat, messaging apps such as Line of Japan and Silicon Valley's WhatsApp also face a big question as to whether they will become major advertising platforms in the near future following the footsteps of Google and Facebook.

Tagsinstant messaging app, advertising