Wallstreetcn app sets the pace for financial news

Wallstreetcn, China's largest financial news app in terms of its viewers, is expected double the number of its monthly active users to 60 million next year, said the company's CEO and founder Wu Xiaopeng.

The app is attracting more viewers, with its readership mainly coming from domestic financial institutions and companies.

Its current venture capital investors include China Media with capital of 100 million yuan ($14.5 million) in 2016. It is one of the largest investors in China's media, entertainment and culture sectors.

Set up in 2014, the app is popular because of its insights and up-to-the-minute coverage of global financial markets.

The 32-year-old CEO told China Daily that Wallstreetcn's revenue is expected to hit 20 million yuan in the fourth quarter of this year. During the first three quarters its combined revenue hit more than 20 million yuan, which was generated by advertisements placed on its app and website, he said.

The company's recently concluded investment summit in Shanghai, with market insiders sharing their insights, also stole the limelight among the nation's numerous investment conferences which are frequently held in Beijing and Shanghai.

The website owned by a private online media company, has transformed from a business driven by traditional advertisements to an e-commerce platform selling mutual funds in the domestic market.

After gaining a fund sales license from the authorities, the website has seen its annual mutual fund sales revenue grow to 10 times the figure produced from advertisements.

Wu also hopes to cash in on the bonanza from Chinese residents' asset allocations amid the backdrop of the internationalization of the renminbi.

""Win-win with financial institutions are what we seek," he said. "China factors are making greater impacts on global financial markets, and we will blaze a trail to target that market."

The Wallstreetcn app takes shape from the CEO's microblog, Heard on Wall Street, which started running on weibo.com in 2011, when Wu was a correspondent for 21st Century Business Herald based in the United States.

The microblog gained 1.05 million fans within two years and he built it into the website, app and a WeChat official account in 2013.

Its daily app push services hit more than 15 times a day on average and during the peak season, in particular, the stock market's roller-coaster period last year, the app pushes reached more than 25 times a day, the CEO said. It has taken the lead in China's Wemedia sector owing to its fast growth.

Wu makes tight demands on his 160 staff members, asking them to deliver news on dynamic markets faster than the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and Reuters.

"They are on-the-demand to own the capability to provide real time analysis and insight, and to work fast and stay ahead of our competitors," he said.