China’s tech giants are racing to own the technology of the metaverse: Tencent, Baidu, Oppo, and Huawei are beating US counterparts to the AR/VR patent punch.

For many years, Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent (the so-called BATs) dominated China’s digital ad revenue rankings. But ByteDance’s Douyin has soared past Baidu and Tencent and will pull in $20.02 billion this year, leaving it second only to Alibaba, with $36.23 billion. The old triopoly is no more. What’s Inside. This report contains our latest forecasts for ad spending in China through 2026.

Baidu saw its online marketing revenue growth plummet from 21.9% to 2.1% in the same period. Tencent posted 23.1% growth in online ad revenues during H1. But in Q3, that dropped to 5.4%, and the company reported a 12.7% YoY decline in Q4. An executive from ByteDance’s Douyin told Chinese media outlet Jiemian News that Douyin’s advertising business had not grown at all in H2 2021.

Major Chinese companies are launching platforms for publishing and distributing NFTs, including Alibaba (Youyin via Taobao), Ant Group (super app Alipay), Baidu (XuperChain), Tencent (Huanhe), JD.com (Lingxi), gaming giant NetEase (Mibao), and Pinterest-like Xiaohongshu (Step into R-Space). Even news publishers are getting involved.

Baidu sees full launch of its metaverse in six years: Ahead of Baidu Create 2021, the company’s developer conference held on December 27, Baidu vice president Ma Jie told reporters XiRang, the company’s metaverse app, is still six years away from a full launch.

Key companies: Alibaba, Baidu, Eintoo, JD.com, Nreal, TCL Technology, Xiaomi. Essential stat: VR revenues in China from hardware, software, content, and services will more than double that of AR in 2021—but AR revenues will overtake VR in 2024.

Baidu. Baidu metaverse app Xirang (which translates to “land of hope” in English) was launched at the end of 2021. Xirang users can create their own avatars and interact with others in the virtual land while traversing such spaces as ancient temples, nature, art exhibits, and a futuristic metropolis dubbed Creator City, and attend events and conferences. Tencent.

Other firms, like Baidu and NetEase, have also started testing products or launching metaverse development projects. But a strong regulatory response could dampen plans to launch metaverse products. The metaverse’s early successes have been in gaming, but China’s increasingly strict playtime regulations for minors could prevent efforts from getting off the ground.

Companies like Alibaba, Baidu, ByteDance, and Tencent have participated in a wave of trademarks filings and investments in the metaverse space, after Mark Zuckerberg touted it as “the next chapter for the internet” at the October Facebook Connect conference.

Tencent surpasses Baidu as the No. 2 ad player in China

Baidu. Baidu metaverse app Xirang (which translates to “land of hope” in English) was launched at the end of 2021. Xirang users can create their own avatars and interact with others in the virtual land while traversing ancient temples, nature, art exhibits, and a futuristic metropolis dubbed Creator City, as well as attend events and conferences. Tencent.

Some of the country’s biggest tech companies—including Alibaba, Baidu, Huawei, NetEase, and Tencent—offer open platforms and tools for AR developers and content creators. Many software and service providers like Sight Plus, Hisense, and Mayitegong are also participating in the AR arena. A leg up in AI and 5G.

Companies like Alibaba, Baidu, ByteDance, and Tencent have participated in a wave of trademarks filings and investments in the metaverse space, after Mark Zuckerberg touted it as “the next chapter for the internet” at the October Facebook Connect conference.

Aside from WeChat, standout super apps in China include Alipay, Baidu, and Meituan, as well as ByteDance’s Jinri Toutiao and Douyin. These super apps are noteworthy because they also support miniprograms built by third-party developers. Chinese travel apps provide reference points.

Although this pattern prevails in many markets, in China conventional wisdom also holds that the poor reputation of its dominant search engine, Baidu, further hinders the growth of search ad spending. In fact, ecommerce giant Alibaba has been far more successful at generating new search ad revenues than Baidu.

The announcement—targeting 34 of China’s largest internet companies, like Baidu and Tencent—emphasized regulators’ purported commitment to snuff out abuses of information and market dominance, among other anti-monopoly violations, per Yahoo News.

This report explores our latest forecast for time spent with media in China, and how the coronavirus pandemic will impact our forecast for 2020 and beyond.

Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent, and other internet giants have released senior-friendly versions of their most popular apps, with features such as larger text and icons, simplified navigation, screen readers, and dialect recognition technology powered by AI.