The companies that make the list of China’s top tech earners shouldn’t come as much of a surprise — the same players — Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent — have been topping that list for a while now. But the release of Alibaba’s Q4 2012 financials yesterday revealed that the old order of things has been upset. After a long stint at the top of the profitability chart, Tencent is now playing second-fiddle to Alibaba.
It’s worth noting that compared with Q4 2011, Alibaba also has had the strongest growth both in revenue and profits.
If these numbers are any indication, Alibaba is likely to hold that top spot on the profit charts for some time to come. But of course, all of these companies are making gobs of money, so I don’t imagine any of them are going to be all that upset about who places where on this ladder.
It’s also worth noting that Tencent’s fall in profits could be due to increased investment in WeChat, which is fighting similar apps like Line and KakaoTalk for international users, and which hasn’t been fully monetized yet. Baidu is also moving internationally – we just spotted the company making inroads into Indonesia — and splashed some cash on a big local acquisition, too. And of course, Alibaba is clearly not going to be content to rest on its laurels, as it just invested a boatload in Sina Weibo and rumors are swirling about a number of other acquisitions and a possible IPO on the horizon.
(via Sina Tech)
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