If China’s confused lovers or lonely hearts have dilemmas they would rather not air in public, they can fire up free messaging app WeChat on their smartphones and talk to condom brand Durex, whose staff will respond no matter the time of day.

Durex’s interactive marketing campaign is just one example of how WeChat, which has 236m monthly active users, and other messaging apps in Asia, are expanding beyond free chat into digital advertising, mobile payments, social networking and gaming – moves that are bringing them increasingly into conflict with established internet groups.

Tencent, which developed WeChat, recently launched a version of the app that makes it easier for users to buy goods they find online and offline. Already, Alibaba, China’s dominant ecommerce company, has pushed back. Shortly before the launch, Alibaba banned sellers on its popular marketplace from using WeChat to reach customers, ostensibly to curb abuse of the system by overly aggressive sellers.