Tech in China: The Home of Billion Dollar Companies
When people think about the tech industry, their mind immediately jumps to Silicon Valley. However, in recent years, influential tech hubs have sprung up on the other side of the Pacific Ocean and have produced many successful Chinese tech companies. In fact, these companies are leading local and global innovations across many industries, earning their host regions the title of “Chinese Silicon Valley” or “the next Silicon Valley”.
In China, the three most influential companies in this field are known as “BAT”- Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent. These are among the Chinese tech giants to keep your eye on as they not only go global but also provide internship and job opportunities in both the United States and in China.
Alibaba
Quick facts:
Founded: 1999
Headquartered in: Hangzhou
Fields: E-commerce, retail, Internet, cloud-computing
Market cap: US$473 billion
Global markets: 200+ countries
Ten years ago, the word Alibaba might conjure up images of Arabian nights, but people now hear this name more often from financial news, especially after the tech company broke records as the largest IPO in U.S. history in 2014.
Alibaba unlocks a whole range of treasure by connecting sellers and buyers, making thousands of deals not only possible but also convenient. The Alibaba group has three e-commerce websites catering to different types of e-commerce: taobao.com for C2C, Tmall.com for B2C, and Alibaba.com for B2B. Together, they facilitate more than half of all e-commerce deals in China. Alibaba even transforms China’s Single’s Day (November 11th) into the world’s biggest online and offline shopping day, generating a record daily sales of US$25.4 billion — an amount that doubles the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales combined.
Behind Alibaba’s business success are constant innovation and global expansion. One of Alibaba’s inventions is Alipay, an electronic payment system that attracts over 450 million active users and enjoys approximately 54% share of mobile payment market in China. To support its platforms and empower other businesses, Alibaba also developed its cloud-computing service Aliyun, which has seen triple-digit year-over-year growth for the past seven quarters. With its vision of building the infrastructure of e-commerce for customers around the globe, Alibaba is embracing talents from all over the world and recently started it’s Global Leadership Academy a talent development program designed to train its next generation of global leaders.
Tencent
Quick facts:
Founded: 1998
Headquartered in: Shenzhen
Fields: Social media, Internet-related services and products, entertainment
Market cap: US$554 billion (recently surpassed Facebook)
Tencent is the most valuable listed Asian company and one of the top 5 biggest firms in the world, along with Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon. However, unlike the other companies, Tencent hasn’t become a household name in many western countries…yet.
Tencent’s Chinese name (Tengxun) means “galloping fast information,” which summarizes what the company does. Tencent’s most famous product is WeChat, an all-in-one messaging app. By combining multimedia messaging, social network, and a spectrum of cross-platform capabilities, WeChat fully exemplifies the “connection” strategy. You can hail a Didi (China’s Uber), pay bills, book movie tickets, shop online, and much more, all from the same app you use to message your friends and colleagues.
Moreover, anything you can imagine doing with a native app, you will find on the WeChat platform in forms of web apps or their new in-app programs called ‘mini-programs’. These new mini-programs are taking aim at Apple and Google’s app stores by eliminating the need to download traditional applications, as these mini-program run within WeChat itself. This creates a wide range of opportunities for ambitious developers and business people who want to tap into the vast user base of WeChat: around 980 million monthly active users and 14 million registered corporate accounts.
In terms of other platforms, the company runs the Chinese equivalents of Facebook and Twitter under the names QQ and Tencent Weibo. Tencent also has Tencent Music and Tencent Video and it holds the distribution rights of various global media including Universal Music, Sony, Warner Music, HBO, and the NBA. They are also considered the largest gaming company in the world, having full ownership of Riot Games and holdings in Epic Games and Activision Blizzard, which have all released blockbuster games.
Baidu
Quick facts:
Founded: 2000
Headquartered in: Beijing
Fields: Internet-related services and products and artificial intelligence
Market cap: US$89 billion
Alexa global ranking: 4
Baidu started as a search engine company, and then utilized its massive search results and data to roll out numerous products for all sectors related to information. This includes Baidu Maps, Baidu Netdisk (cloud storage), Baidu Baike (online encyclopedia), and Baidu Knows (question-and-answer site). There are more than forty products or services released under the name of Baidu covering all aspects of people’s life. However, in recent years, new Internet companies are challenging Baidu. Some doubted the innovative ability of the company, criticizing it for monetizing its current business, but Baidu has responded with solid efforts and achievements. As the founder and CEO of the company commented, “Every company has its own DNA. Baidu is a technology company.”
Baidu has secured its dominant position in the search engine market with a 76% market share, far ahead of the Alibaba-owned Shenma search (9%) and the Tencent-owned Sogou (3%). Baidu is also going mobile; the company made the biggest IT acquisition in China in 2013 by buying the popular mobile app store 91 Wireless. In addition, Baidu is strong in AI, devoting 15% of its revenue to it Baidu’s current progress has shown high accuracy in both voice and facial recognition, and the company also launched programs such as the Apollo autonomous driving program to actualize its technologies. As AI and other technologies take center stage, Baidu will be a great platform for young talents to fulfill their tech dreams.
As these Chinese tech companies go global, they provide a window to learn about China’s business world, a platform to work with the latest technology, and a network to connect to the globe.
For those interested in learning more about China-focused job and internship opportunities, accelerators, tech news and programs, take a look at the list below:
Accelerators, Tech Programs, News:
Le Wagon
A coding school and creative tech community with campuses in Chengdu and Shanghai. They teach tech product development through a 9-week fullstack coding bootcamp. Summer sessions.
Chinaccelerator
The best accelerator in China; focused on helping internet startups cross borders, from the world into China and China to the world. Applications close on Feb. 8th.
Startupbootcamp China
Digital health focused accelerator in Chengdu with more locations and verticals set to open in China in the near future.
Technode
Source for English-language China and Asia tech news; sister site of TechCrunch.
The Harbinger
Media startup founded and run by current and recent college students, focused on multimedia English language China tech news.
Job and Internship Opportunities:
Alibaba
Tencent
http://careers.tencent.com/global/us/index.html
Baidu USA
Huawei
https://chm.tbe.taleo.net/chm01/ats/careers/jobSearch.jsp?org=FUTUREWEITECH&cws=1
DJI
http://we.dji.com/jobs_en.html
DiDi
Xiaomi
https://www.linkedin.com/company/xiaomi-technology/
This post was contributed by the team at Le Wagon. Le Wagon is a coding school and community of entrepreneurs, designers, and developers, active in startups across the globe. Their graduates have gone on to become project managers, junior developers, and founders of numerous startups. Applications are now open for summer sessions in Chengdu and Shanghai. Email your China tech and startup questions to chengdu@lewagon.com!
