<article><p>China&#8217;s two-plus years of living with the coronavirus have firmly established video conferencing as part of day-to-day life.</p></article>

<p>China&#8217;s two-plus years of living with the coronavirus have firmly established video conferencing as part of day-to-day life.</p>
<p>But while a number of large technology companies initially jumped into what looked like a potential source of new growth, the internet duopoly of Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group Holding have emerged as the clear winners here as well.</p>
<p>Tencent and Japan&#8217;s Nomura Research Institute published in late 2021 a report on the popularity of different business videoconferencing platforms in the Japanese and Chinese markets, based on earlier surveys.</p>
<p>Tencent Meeting led the list for China, with 49.7% of the nearly 7,300 respondents saying they use it, followed by Alibaba&#8217;s DingTalk at 40.6%. WeCom, another Tencent service, was placed third at 29.6%. Multiple responses were allowed.</p>
<p>The rankings show that American services, while popular in Japan, have struggled to gain traction in China. Zoom and Microsoft Teams — the top two in Japan by far — languished at 12.5% and 4.4% in China.</p>
<p>Other Chinese companies are faring a little better. Huawei Cloud Meeting — offered by Chinese telecommunications equipment powerhouse Huawei Technologies — was used by just 9.2% of videoconferencing respondents in China. Feishu, developed by TikTok creator ByteDance, eked out a 3% share.</p>
<p>&#8220;Tencent and Alibaba are in a league of their own in China&#8217;s economy and society through their social media&#8221; and other services, said one of the study authors, senior consultant Li Zhihui of the Nomura Research Institute&#8217;s Global Industrial Policy &amp; Management Research Department.</p>
<p>Tencent&#8217;s WeChat app boasts 1.3 billion users — a tally equivalent to more than 90% of China&#8217;s population. With the pandemic stoking demand for virtual meetings, videoconferencing was a natural next step.</p>
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<p>Alibaba&#8217;s image is strongly tied to its e-commerce arm. But DingTalk had more than 10 million enterprise customers even before COVID-19, according to Li, thanks to functionality for collaborating on documents and clocking in and out.</p>
<p>Despite cross-Pacific tensions in the technology sector, Chinese authorities have not imposed any particular restrictions on U.S. virtual meeting platforms. But the Chinese market appears to be steadily progressing toward a duopoly.</p>
<p>2021 saw China crack down on alleged anti-competitive activities by Tencent and Alibaba to the point of triggering price drops by other stocks. The tough measures also underscore the strength of the two tech giants.</p>
<div id="AdAsia"><em>The article was first published on <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/China-tech/Alibaba-and-Tencent-rule-another-Chinese-market-video-calls">Nikkei Asia</a>.</em></div>
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Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Huawei struggle to compete against the Chinese duo's vast user base.

Alibaba and Tencent lord over another Chinese market — video calls

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Alibaba and Tencent lord over another Chinese market — video calls

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