作者：李京荣

微信是腾讯公司（目前中国最大的互联网综合服务提供商之一）于2011年1月21日推出的一款通过网络快速发送语音短信、视频、图片和文字，支持多人群聊的手机聊天软件。用户可以通过微信与好友进行形式上更加丰富的类似于短信、彩信等方式的联系。

微信因其软件本身完全免费，使用任何功能都不会收取费用，微信时产生的上网流量费由网络运营商收取，而深受用户青睐。截至2013年1月23日，微信用户达3亿，而且仍在加速普及中。

腾讯总裁刘炽平今日在2013博鳌论坛年会上对微信即将收费的传闻进行了坚决的否决。表示不要轻易相信网上的内容，“我们没有任何收费计划，微信不应该也不会针对基础用户收费。”

WeChat is a mobile phone chat software introduced by Tencent Inc., one of China's largest Internet service providers, on Jan. 21, 2011. It supports mobile phone users to get involved in group communication by sending and sharing audio, video and photo messages through the Internet. It is a comparatively new chat style similar to, but much colorful than, previous short messaging and multimedia messaging.

The Internet flow fee produced by WeChat is charged by network operators. Due to its completely free software and functions, WeChat has been warmly welcomed by mobile phone users and has become increasingly popular over the past two years. As of Jan. 23, 2013, the number of WeChat users had reached 300 million, with the figure still growing quickly.

Tencent President Liu Chiping said on Apr. 7, 2013, at the Boao Forum for Asia in China’s Hainan Province that the company's WeChat software will remain free to use in response to complaints from netizens regarding the possibility of being charged for using the originally free chat application.