WeChat advertising to generate huge income for Tencent   

(ECNS) -- Tencent Holdings Ltd, China's biggest social networking firm, has launched an advertising service via its hugely popular mobile messaging app WeChat, which has 600 million users.

This service is expected to generate 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) for its parent company, sources said.

A large number of WeChat users on Wednesday received the first advertisements via their WeChat Moments, by which users share information with friends in a similar way to Twitter and Facebook.

The advertisements launched by the "WeChat team" can automatically be added to a user's friend list and is operated by Tencent Holdings to display ads with the account label.

Advertisements intelligently target users based on their preferences and communities, and users can opt to block them should they not be interested, according to Tencent Holdings.

Marketing via mobile Internet platforms was first adopted by Twitter in July 2011, followed by Facebook and other local social websites, namely microblog and Qzone.