China media giants gaining ground on US rivals

US — China now accounts for two of the six largest online media companies as Tencent and Baidu enter the list of companies with highest online media revenue according to the latest Digital Media Index.

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However Google continues to dominate – and has extended its lead – with $31.4 billion of digital media revenue for the first half of 2014 (a 12% year-on-year increase). Amazon is in second place with revenues of $10.3bn.

Facebook is third with $5.4bn (up 66%), narrowly ahead of Chinese internet service portal Tencent at $5.4bn (up 43%). Web services company Baidu ($3.4bn, up 56%) is the other Chinese firm in the world’s top six, behind Apple’s iTunes ($5.2bn).

Yahoo is the only one of the world’s top 10 to see digital media revenues decline year-on-year (down 3%).

Global research and advisory firm Strategy Analytics is behind the Digital Media Index which analyses revenue trends across 44 public digital media companies. Between them, the 44 companies generated $85.9bn in digital media revenues in the first half of 2014 – 17% more than the same period in 2013. Among the 44, Chinese internet security software firm Qihoo saw the largest year-on-year rise in revenues (up 123% to $582 million), just ahead of Twitter (up 122% to $562m). Facebook (up 66%) grew third fastest.

Alongside Baidu and Tencent, online media company Sina (up 36%) is the fourth Chinese company among the 10 fastest-growers.

Michael Goodman, director, digital media for Strategy Analytics said: “A red-hot Chinese internet market is challenging the historical dominance of US companies. 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.”

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