Through its own digital currency, Kik messenger moves into payments

Kik’s making its own currency.

On Thursday, the messenger platform that claims to have 15 million monthly active users (57 percent of whom are aged 13 to 24), launched Kin, a currency of its own that will let users earn and buy things from inside the app.

“It is becoming increasingly difficult for companies in our space to continue to differentiate through innovation,” said Erin Clift, chief marketing officer of the Waterloo, Canada-based company. Although Kik’s user base pales in comparison is small compared to its competitors — WeChat had 889 million monthly active users last year, while as of March of this year, Facebook had 1.9 billion monthly active users — Kik said it hopes it will break the dominance of established players by creating its own payments ecosystem.

Read the full story on tearsheet.co

More in Marketing

From influencers to AI, here’s what Gen Alpha thinks about your brand

The Gen Alpha cohort now influences nearly half of total U.S. household spending in families with children ages 8-14.

At S4 Capital’s Monks, agents can run autonomously, unsupervised for days

S4 Capital’s digital agency now budgets for tokens and talent from the same pot.

Dhar Mann’s $100M AWNY deal target for creators is already pledged (so he says)

The goal with Dhar Mann as AWNY’s chief creator officer is to make it easier to make connections that are often held up by corporate red tape and too many layers between creator and CMO.