Most valuable internet companies in China 2022

China’s internet economy has evolved rapidly over time, enough to even rival its Silicon Valley counterpart. As of 2022, Tencent Holdings had a market value of around 2.48 trillion yuan. 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 BAT trinity?

The BATs – Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent - are China's three technology titans. As the country’s most popular search engine, Baidu held the largest share of PC search engine users in 2019. 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 trio

While being the underdogs of the Chinese IT scene, domestic companies such as ByteDance, Meituan and DiDi have received global recognition for their software services. As of December 2022, 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. Meituan, which is famous for its food delivery app, alone earned 179 billion yuan worth of revenue in 2021. On the other hand, DiDI has provided an alternative to Uber having catered to the majority of China’s ride sharing demands.