WeChat Channels in China: Double 11 Push, Creator Sales & Mini Shop
Key Points
- WeChat Channels user time grew more than 20% in Q2 2026, and Tencent's marketing revenue rose 22% to 43.6 billion yuan.
- Advertisers on the Channels creator matching platform grew 154% in 2025, and Channels led all platforms in growth for domestic beauty brands in H1 2026.
- WeChat Shop's Double 11 subsidies of up to 100% on qualifying products lower the cost of a first creator test, so bookings need to start in October.
WeChat Channels viewing time and Tencent's ad revenue are both growing by more than 20%
Foreign brands tend to split China creator budgets between Douyin and Xiaohongshu and keep WeChat for customer service and CRM.
Tencent's latest results make that split harder to defend.
Total user time on WeChat Channels, the short-video and livestream feed inside WeChat, grew more than 20% year on year in Q2 2026, and Tencent's marketing services revenue rose 22% to 43.6 billion yuan¹.
Tencent credits part of the ad growth to closed-loop marketing inside WeChat, which helps merchants on WeChat Shop (Weixin Xiaodian, often called Mini Shop) and mini games buy Tencent's ad inventory more effectively¹.
Weixin and WeChat together had 1.439 billion monthly users¹.
The creator market on Channels grew faster than the audience.
On the Channels creator matching platform, the number of advertisers rose 154% in 2025 and the number of creators earning money from it rose 139%² (Chart 1).
WeChat does not publish the base, so these are growth rates, not sizes.
They do show brands and creators arriving on the same marketplace at about the same pace.
Beauty and apparel brands are already selling on Channels, through creators and their own livestreams
Beauty is where the sales data is clearest.
Qingyan Intelligence, which tracks China's cosmetics industry, found that Channels grew 69.3% in the first half of 2026, faster than any other platform for domestic beauty brands³.
The skincare brand Guyu took 282 million yuan of GMV on Channels, close to 10% of its 3.015 billion yuan across all channels, the most of any skincare brand on Channels³.
Skechers shows how a foreign brand has used the channel so far.
Its WeChat sales grew close to triple digits year on year in the first half, ahead of its other e-commerce channels, but more than 90% came from its own livestreams rather than creators⁴.
After 618, the company saw sales grow through WeChat Shop's store and card-wallet entry points, and decided to set up a separate team to run WeChat as a conventional shelf store⁴.
It has also split one large livestream account into several smaller rooms⁴.
Shelves, short videos, livestream clips and Official Account links can all close a WeChat Shop sale⁴.
For creator work, that means a viewer who finds a product in a creator's livestream can still find and buy it the following week, as long as the brand has built the shelf.
WeChat Shop's Double 11 incentives lower the cost of a first test on Channels
WeChat Shop joined Double 11 with an incentive package announced in late September.
Qualifying products from three types of "good shop" merchants, rated on brand, service and best-sellers, can receive platform subsidies of up to 100%, fully funded by WeChat⁵.
The package also includes growth-card points for livestream planning, a first-breakthrough incentive and platform-funded vouchers for hosts⁵.
The 618 numbers explain why WeChat is pushing creators.
During 618 2026, brand sales made through creators on WeChat Shop grew 225% year on year⁵.
WeChat is also adding gifting tools, including "surprise gifts" whose contents the recipient sees only on opening⁵.
For a brand testing Channels, the subsidy lowers the cost of a first campaign.
The 100% figure is a ceiling for qualifying products, not a general discount, and the terms favor merchants WeChat already rates well.
Double 11 is about six weeks away, so creator bookings made in October are the ones that will run in November.
Add a WeChat creator line to the Double 11 plan now
A first test on Channels needs three pieces, and none of them has to be large.
First, book a small group of Channels creators for pre-sale content and livestreams, and check that their audiences buy inside WeChat rather than only watch.
Second, build the WeChat Shop shelf before any livestream goes out, with products grouped by category and by audience, so viewers who arrive after the stream can still buy⁴.
Third, set up gifting links for products that suit them, since WeChat is putting its own effort behind gifts this season⁵.
The more realistic reading of the numbers is that Channels is a second line next to Douyin and Xiaohongshu, not a replacement.
It has its own traffic, a fast-growing pool of paid creators and, for this Double 11, a subsidy that makes a test cheaper than usual.
A brand that runs one now will have its own WeChat conversion data before 2027 budgets are set.
References
- 腾讯控股, 2026 · https://www.tencent.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/%E8%85%BE%E8%AE%AF%E5%85%AC%E5%B8%83%E4%BA%8C%E9%9B%B6%E4%BA%8C%E5%85%AD%E5%B9%B4%E7%AC%AC%E4%BA%8C%E5%AD%A3%E4%B8%9A%E7%BB%A9.pdf
- 品玩（微信公开课PRO）, 2026 · https://www.pingwest.com/a/310746
- 青眼情报（钛媒体）, 2026 · https://www.tmtpost.com/8119243.html
- 21世纪经济报道, 2026 · https://www.21jingji.com/article/20260924/herald/d3f09fcbe754dbcc933a90a54e8f7721.html
- 21世纪经济报道, 2026 · https://www.21jingji.com/article/20260926/herald/004c9f3f0aef7d6717ac616b01d24f8e.html
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