Monthly active users of WeChat, a popular social networking app run by internet behemoth Tencent Holdings Ltd, rose to 889 million last year, up 28 percent year-on-year, according to a report which was released on Thursday.

The report, released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, said the number of active WeChat users last year helped directly drive 174.3 billion yuan ($25.3 billion) of information-sector spending, an increase of 26.2 percent on the previous year.

The report said WeChat has helped boost domestic information-sector consumption, a category that includes e-commerce, internet and cloud computing technology.