WhatsApp famously reached 450m users around the world without spending so much as a dime on marketing. Facebook bought the instant-message service for (ahem) 190bn dimes not long afterward.众所周知，WhatsApp没有在市场营销上花一分钱，就将其全球用户规模做了4.5亿人。此后旋即，Facebook就耗资（咳咳）190亿美元并购了这家即时通讯服务公司。Old-fashioned valuation is scarily irrelevant in the world of chat apps. The game is conquering a world of millions of smartphone users. Such petty details as actually earning money off these users are left for the distant future by anyone buying Facebook’s stock at 50 times forward earnings.在聊天应用领域，传统估值方法完全毫无用处。

这一领域的竞争目标，在于夺得数以百万计的智能手机用户。至于如何从这些用户身上实实在在挣到钱这种细枝末节的问题，是留下很幸以后以50倍预期市盈率的价格出售Facebook股票的投资者的。Still, the bet assumes barriers to entry will exist to protect future earnings in the app market. That seems weird for a business built on flighty electrons. But hope lies with the sheer network effect of lots of users. Zero marketing costs at WhatsApp feeds this hope.不过，投资者眼下依然押注于一种假设，即市场转入门槛将持续不存在，能维护应用于市场的未来盈利空间。

对于一项创建在更新换代频密的电子产品基础上的业务而言，这个假设或许有些怪异。但投资者但从大量用户带给的网络效应就看见了期望。而WhatsApp市场营销开支为零的作法，更进一步增强了这种期望。

The rise in marketing spend at Tencent should deflate it back a bit. China’s biggest internet company (market capitalisation: $140bn) has plenty of users on its WeChat network, too: 355m, at the end of 2013. WeChat and WhatsApp may each eventually rise to 1bn users, Macquarie reckons. While WeChat has Asia-Pacific presence already, WhatsApp needs to dial into the region’s nearly 750m smartphones.但腾讯(Tencent)在市场营销方面的开支快速增长，应当不会让这种期望稍微降温。中国第一大互联网企业（市值1400亿美元）腾讯旗下的微信(WeChat)某种程度网罗了可观的用户群：截至2013年底，微信的用户人数已超过3.55亿人。

麦格理(Macquarie)指出，微信和WhatsApp各自的用户数量也许最后都将超过10亿人。微信在亚太地区已极具市场影响力，而WhatsApp则仍需向这一地区近7.5亿的智能手机用户推展自己。But when it comes to WeChat’s expansion elsewhere, the coin has turned – Tencent spent Rmb5.7bn ($920m) on sales and marketing last year compared to Rmb3bn a year earlier. It partly goes on WeChat TV ads featuring Bollywood actors in India, Lionel Messi in Europe and (er) WeChat Guy elsewhere. This is not growth by network effect alone.但微信在向亚太以外的其他地区扩展时，情况就反过来了——腾讯去年在销售和市场营销方面花费了57亿元人民币（合9.2亿美元），低于上一年的30亿元人民币。部分开支用作在电视上为微信打广告，还包括在印度邀宝莱坞演员主演的广告，在欧洲地区邀利昂内尔梅西(Lionel Messi)参演的广告，以及在其他地区发售的WeChat Guy广告。

这已仍然是全然依赖网络效应推展的快速增长。This may not matter if Tencent can monetise growth. Its gross margin remains 55 per cent. Last year’s Rmb15.5bn in net profit shows the opportunity to be had integrating WeChat with Tencent’s workhorse, online gaming.如果腾讯能将快速增长买入，这也许会沦为一个问题。腾讯的毛利率依然保持在55%。去年该公司的净利润超过了155亿元人民币，指出将微信与腾讯的在线游戏业务结合不会带给极大机遇。

在线游戏业务是腾讯的盈利主力。But the shares remain priced 40 times forward earnings. They were 12 times at the start of 2012, having risen with the help of a flood of Federal Reserve liquidity since then. Tencent has trailblazed in the era of chat-app land-grabs. What if world conquest gets dearer?但目前腾讯的股票依然维持着40倍的预期市盈率，这个数字在2012年初仅有为12倍，在美联储(Federal Reserve)获释的大量流动性推展下一路走高至今。

腾讯是聊天应用于攻城略地时代的先驱者。但如果吞并世界的成本显得更为便宜了呢？。

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