QR codes are slowly emerging and making its comeback in America and Europe, but QR codes in Asia have been very alive from years now. Why is this continent so in love with QR codes? What makes QR codes so important to them?
Thes are some of the questions we are going to answer in today’s posts.
Why is Asia so in love with QR codes?
QR codes were released at the best time in China – Mobile internet usage was escalating really fast and these little codes were helping connect the offline world to the new digital era.
Besides the high usage of the internet in China, there are some other reasons like the ones we discuss below:
- In its early phase, WeChat made a built-in feature and was brought to millions of users by adding QR codes to scan contacts. WeChat is more than the “Chinese WhatsApp”, there is the possibility to rent and buy mansions, assist an online trial and much more. WeChat is the main reason for the QR code expansion in China.
- Scanning a QR Code is more comfortable than typing a URL in Chinese. People in China prefer scanning a QR Code over typing a URL.
- Alibaba has experimented with QR Codes in China and found an impressive response. One of their campaigns got 200,000 scans in under a minute.
WeChat and QR codes
WeChat’s gave the final push to the QR codes by introducing them to its more than 5 hundred million monthly active users.
In September 2012, WeChat, a Chinese social media network, introduced a built-in QR code scanner in its later updated version. Making the app even more powerful and allowing users to interact in ways never used before.
A sample of a QR code to add a friend on WeChat
The prosperity of QR codes in Asia is not a sole contribution of tech giants. Their strategies empowered merchants to promote in the physical world and enable customers to access all services that merchants developed online.
Why are QR codes in Asia so important?
As we have anticipated at the beginning of the article, Asian people, and especially Chinese people, love QR codes because it makes it easier for them to do things with their mobile devices. It is much easier to scan a QR code than type, especially those characters that they don’t recognize as well as their own as it can be the English, French or Spanish language.
QR codes in Asia: their usage
- Collect gifts at a wedding
- To identify pets
- Identify senior citizens
- Post and reply to job boards
- Checking the source and authenticity of food and drinks
- Sharing bikes
- As an identity badge for transportation
- As information point in street signs
- For gaming
- For advertisement
To wrap up
QR codes have a high impact on the Asian communities due to the easy access to QR codes Scanner on their phone that will take way less time than typing URLs or names.
The introduction of QR code readers and QR code generators inside apps and the spread of QR codes usage among tech giants have made an extraordinary impulse of QR codes in the populations. Besides that, the acknowledgment of QR codes from merchants had made the expansion of QR codes possible and useful for a whole community.
