Chinese media giants rivalling US dominance
CHINA is gaining ground on America’s dominance of the world’s biggest digital media companies with the Asian powerhouse now accounting for two of the six largest online media firms, by revenues generated.
Baidu, the Chinese internet search firm, and Tencent, the Chinese online services giant, both reached the top six with revenues of $3.4bn (£2.2bn) and $5.4bn respectively in the first half of 2014, according to research from Strategy Analytics.
“The Chinese companies have been particularly adept at generating revenues across a variety of services,” said Strategy Analytics digital media director Michael Goodman.
“The fact that there are about 2.5 times more Chinese than Americans online is a big factor so they’ve been able to hit such heights solely in a domestic market. The big question, and the key threat to US global dominance, is whether they can translate this success outside China,” added Goodman.
The list also contained search giant Google ($31.4bn), online retailer Amazon ($10.3bn), social network Facebook ($5.4bn) and Apple’s iTunes store ($5.2bn).