China’s Internet Giants

A lot of big American internet companies, like Yahoo, Ebay and Google, fail to earn a place in the top of the Chinese market. And other companies like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube are blocked by the government.

Instead of these American companies, the market consists of fast-growing companies like Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba. These local firms are making huge profits because of the lack of competitors. The cause of this is due to the Chinese government, who continues to favor domestic companies.

Because those companies are unknown for us, it’s hard to analyze them. Still, the success of Chinese companies here can be measured by the numbers.
For example, the revenue at Tencent, a kind of Internet conglomerate, jumped over 70 percent last year, to about $1.8 billion.

Some analysts say the success of these companies is because of the young people who dominate Web use in China. They’re searching for a lifestyle. A combination of music, games and social networking. These Chinese companies apply these demands and they adjust their websites to be attractive and useful for the Chinese youngsters.
Those companies, however, have a small change to become global brands, because the Western society has other interests.

I think it would be interesting if the American internet companies would use the same strategy as the Chinese companies. If they should study the interests of the local citizens, they could make a better product.


Bram Verstraete

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/business/global/24internet.html