After a suspension, Tencent’s WeChat resumes new user registrations in mainland China.

• WeChat had delayed new user registrations in order to enhance its ‘security technologies to ensure compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.’

• According to Think by Bits testing completed on Thursday, the Shenzhen-based startup has reopened the app to new sign-ups.

Tencent’s WeChat has restarted new user registrations in mainland China, after stopping them earlier this month to update its security technologies.

On Thursday morning, social media users noticed the return of new user registrations on China’s leading instant messaging network. Tencent confirmed the resumption but declined to speak further. Users on China’s Twitter-like Weibo site reported that the process for creating a new account on the app looked to be the same as before the suspension.

WeChat is China’s most popular mobile application, with over 1.2 billion users chatting, playing games, shopping, reading the news, and paying for practically anything online and offline. Since its initial release in January 2011, the popular social app has received approximately 100 upgrades, however, it is unusual for it to be unavailable to new users for days at a time.

Tencent’s stock fell further earlier this week after a state media story referred to video games as “spiritual opium,” a characterization it later retracted. Tencent’s stock had dropped roughly 19% in the previous 30 days as of lunchtime on Thursday.

In addition to resuming new sign-ups, Tencent upgraded WeChat to version 8.0.9 on Thursday, which permits simultaneous logins across several devices, a much-requested feature. Customized ringtones are now supported by the app.