Tencent Holdings Ltd’s (騰訊) messaging services were by far the most popular Chinese mobile apps last year, leading steady growth in the world’s largest Internet and smartphone market, the Chinese government’s online industry overseers said yesterday.
WeChat (微信) remained the most heavily used app in the country last year, with almost 80 percent of the online population employing the social media service frequently, the China Internet Network Information Center or CNNIC said in its annual report.
Tencent’s QQ took second place, while Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s (阿里巴巴) online bazaar Taobao (淘寶) came in third. Baidu Inc’s (百度) mobile app and Alipay (支付寶), the payments service run by Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial Services Group (螞蟻金服), rounded out the top five.
The rankings underscore how China’s “BAT” Internet triumvirate — Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent — dominate the country’s Internet industry, which is walled off from the likes of Google, Twitter Inc and Facebook Inc. Internet users there climbed about 6 percent to 731 million — about twice the population of the US.
The number of people who accessed the Internet through a mobile device surged more than 12 percent to 695 million.
China has become a major source of revenue for smartphone industry players from Qualcomm Inc to Apple Inc, which now counts the greater China region as its biggest international market, but the domestic scene is again lorded over by a clutch of local players, including Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp (歐珀移動), Vivo Communication Technology Co Ltd (維沃移動通信) and Huawei Technologies Co (華為).
One of the fastest-growing areas last year was ride-hailing, according to the CNNIC. That segment is dominated by Didi Chuxing (滴滴出行), which drove Uber Technologies Inc out of the market last year when it bought the San Francisco start-up’s local operation.
The demise of the coal industry left the US’ Appalachian region in tatters, with lost jobs, spoiled water and countless kilometers of abandoned underground mines. Now entrepreneurs are eyeing the rural region with ambitious visions to rebuild its economy by converting old mines into solar power systems and data centers that could help fuel the increasing power demands of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. One such project is underway by a non-profit team calling itself Energy DELTA (Discovery, Education, Learning and Technology Accelerator) Lab, which is looking to develop energy sources on about 26,305 hectares of old coal land in
Taiwan’s exports soared 56 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of US$64.05 billion last month, propelled by surging global demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and cloud service infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) called the figure an unexpected upside surprise, citing a wave of technology orders from overseas customers alongside the usual year-end shopping season for technology products. Growth is likely to remain strong this month, she said, projecting a 40 percent to 45 percent expansion on an annual basis. The outperformance could prompt the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
Netflix on Friday faced fierce criticism over its blockbuster deal to acquire Warner Bros Discovery. The streaming giant is already viewed as a pariah in some Hollywood circles, largely due to its reluctance to release content in theaters and its disruption of traditional industry practices. As Netflix emerged as the likely winning bidder for Warner Bros — the studio behind Casablanca, the Harry Potter movies and Friends — Hollywood’s elite launched an aggressive campaign against the acquisition. Titanic director James Cameron called the buyout a “disaster,” while a group of prominent producers are lobbying US Congress to oppose the deal,
Two Chinese chipmakers are attracting strong retail investor demand, buoyed by industry peer Moore Threads Technology Co’s (摩爾線程) stellar debut. The retail portion of MetaX Integrated Circuits (Shanghai) Co’s (上海沐曦) upcoming initial public offering (IPO) was 2,986 times oversubscribed on Friday, according to a filing. Meanwhile, Beijing Onmicro Electronics Co (北京昂瑞微), which makes radio frequency chips, was 2,899 times oversubscribed on Friday, its filing showed. The bids coincided with Moore Threads’ trading debut, which surged 425 percent on Friday after raising 8 billion yuan (US$1.13 billion) on bets that the company could emerge as a viable local competitor to Nvidia
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