Company
TalkBox
TL;DR
Hong Kong-based mobile messaging app that launched in late 2010 with voice note functionality.
Hong Kong-based mobile messaging app that launched in late 2010 with voice note functionality. TalkBox was the fastest-growing social app in China by April 2011 with over 1 million users, threatening Tencent's QQ dominance. Tencent approached TalkBox about acquisition but was rejected. WeChat subsequently copied TalkBox's voice note feature and leveraged QQ's 700 million user social graph to overtake TalkBox.
Cautionary Notes on TalkBox
- Rejected Tencent acquisition offer
- Stalled at 10M users while WeChat grew to billions