China’s most popular chat app has seen off rivals in China such as Alibaba’s Laiwang, Korean-Japanese Line and Facebook’s WhatsApp. But now some users of WeChat — and even its creator — say it is threatened by a greater homegrown challenge: clutter.

Since its launch in 2011, WeChat, or Weixin as it is more commonly known in China, has become synonymous with the mobile internet for China’s 525m smartphone users, an addictive way to chat online that has won international praise for its minimalist design.

It is hard to overstate the pervasiveness of WeChat in Chinese life — the app is a phone, messenger, video conference, ecommerce platform and gaming console, not to mention noodle delivery service, for a nation of people in love with their smartphones. Many a new relationship is sealed with the ritual smartphone “scan” of one anothers’ WeChat QR code.