Qihoo 360 launched free call app on 23 Dec 2014 according to latest news on dianhua.360.com, which is developed by 360 Safe Contact team. This free call app is another choice for users in addition to Yixin’s free call offer, WeChat free call apps and so on.

360 Free Call can realize “one-party online”, which indicates it only needs the calling party to install such app to realize free calls. WeChat launched WeChat Contacts app offering free calls in November 2014 which requires both parties to install the app. In comparison, 360 app is more competitive in the market.

Calling people with 360’s app may not be completely free in the future but currently 360 gives away 99,999 minutes’ free calls for the first 100,000 users who call to phone users who do not download 360 free call app.

Also read: Qihoo 360 Revenues Doubled, 495M MAUs in Q3 2014

Wechat released a Wechat Contacts app as an enhancement to smartphones’ existing contacts. The most appealing feature is offering users to make free VoIP calls. It also offers auto backup of contacts, Wechat profile photo imports, group SMS and bulk deleting contacts.

Only users who use this Wechat app can make and receive free calls. The caller is redirected to leave a voice mail if the receiver does not pick up. According to the official introduction, the app uses 300K data for every one minute’s call under 2G/3G/4G network. Users might need to pay for the data to the networks. But, under Wifi the service is totally free.

We tested this app in the team and the voice quality is very good; even better than regular network voice calls. The three telcos in China should be very nervous right now.

Wechat has been working to enhance its feature to create more broader engagement with mobile users, advertisers, business users, gaming users, and app developers. It launched a micro-video shooting function in October 2014 that seems promising.

It has also gained popularity in international markets such as India. 21% correspondents surveyed said they used Wechat in the past month, more than Line and Snapchat app.

Read more: Why Wechat Marketing Metrics Could All Be Lies