The neighbors upstairs and downstairs can be called distant relatives rather than close neighbors.

On January 17, 2011, a cultural communication company in Beijing applied to register the WeChat trademark. Tencent’s WeChat trademark applied for registration on January 24, 2011, only one week late.

On January 21, 2011, WeChat released the 1.0 beta version for iPhone users. This version supports importing existing contact information through QQ numbers, but only has simple functions such as instant messaging, sharing photos, and changing avatars.

In the subsequent three beta versions of 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3, WeChat gradually added support for reading mobile phone address books, interoperability with Tencent Weibo private messages, and multi-person conversation functions. As of 2011 At the end of April, Tencent WeChat gained four to five million registered users.