Baidu, Alibaba Group Holding, and Tencent Holdings-the 'Big Three' Internet companies or, as they are collectively known, BAT-have made the biggest risks and are, so far, China's Internet darlings. Together, they are worth 550 billion yuan (US$87.3 billion) and are almost the three biggest names found in China's Internet so far. They permeate almost every aspect of China's economy.
The Chinese population is already big, but the internet population of the country has only gotten bigger. To date, 800 million Chinese people are on the Internet, according to data accumulated by the Chinese government. It doesn't stop there, however.
China's internet giants are competing for a premium piece of this pie. With in-house products, services, or access to different features, these companies are looking to draw customers to invest time and money to them, so says SCMP. It is important for potential investors to look at these companies to know which ones to approach should they plan to create a stake in China's big Internet market.
So far, all of these people rely on the 'Big Three' for their services. According to Tech Crunch, about 29.68 million of the Chinese public first relied on these companies in 2018 alone. The US, in contrast, only has about 300 million Internet users-500 million smaller than that of the Chinese Internet sphere.
To be exact, the BAT has prime stakes in banking, payments, and e-commerce sites-most of which are used by Chinese netizens, with 71 percent using payment and e-commerce services. It is this pressure that may have the Chinese government cracking down on sites they deem are not in line with what they aim to give to the Chinese public-hence, the failure of other global Internet companies to put up shop in China.
The sheer size of users in China cannot be ignored. It's even bigger than the US, the supposed leader in Internet usage. China's population knows how to use mobile apps for payments and services and they are fairly active in looking at the events happening in their country, and commenting on it.
By the sheer number of subscribers alone, China's big three-Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent-could be viewed as a leader in Internet services worldwide. It is China's unique mix of approval by the government and Internet savvy that makes it interesting.
