China’s internet economy has evolved rapidly over time, enough to even rival its Silicon Valley counterpart. As of 2023, Tencent Holdings had a market value of around 2.85 trillion yuan, ranking nineth among the world's most valuable companies. While the Chinese tech industry has long been dominated by the BAT trio, with Tencent as the market leader, a new generation of digital powerhouses seem to be closing the gap.
Who are the new BAT trinity?
The new BATs – ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent - are China's three technology titans. ByteDance, the creator of TikTok and its Chinese sister app Douyin, accounted for 31 percent of China’s mobile app usage time , overtaking the long time champion Tencent in 2022. Meanwhile, the Alibaba Group offers a variety of e-commerce services with the domestic retail segment being its largest revenue generator. Similarly, Tencent Holdings, of the WeChat and QQ apps fame, earned most of its revenue through its value-added services.
China’s budding tech players
While being the underdogs of the Chinese IT scene, domestic companies such as Pinduoduo and Meituan have received global recognition. With estimated e-commerce turnover of 445 billion U.S. dollars in 2022, Pinduoduo has climbed to the third-largest online retailers in the world after Alibaba and Amazon. Meituan, which is famous for its food delivery app, alone earned 220 billion yuan worth of revenue in 2022. On the other hand, Baidu, China’s most popular search engine, has lost its the former BAT trinity title.
