Source | DingJiao One 2025 has passed. Looking back from the beginning of 2026, how did China's internet giants fare in the past year? Artificial intelligence moved from technology to industrial implementation, the platform economy bid farewell to extensive expansion, and the capital market re-evaluated growth quality and earnings certainty. Although China's internet giants did not undergo intense reshuffling, they began to diverge in market value, profitability, and strategic direction. Using "market value" as a yardstick, we have compiled the top 10 Chinese internet companies by market value at the end of 2025 and compared them with the rankings at the end of 2024. The list overall shows a pattern of "more gains than losses, stable players":

  1. The top-tier structure is basically stable, with Tencent, Alibaba, and Pinduoduo firmly in the top three.
  2. Xiaomi, NetEase, Ctrip, and Baidu each rose one place, while Meituan and JD.com each fell two places.
  3. Meituan and JD.com saw their market values shrink, becoming the only decliners among the top ten.
  4. The top ten players are stable, but six of them changed rankings.

The Ten Giants Unchanged But Divided into Three Echelons In 2025, the market value and stock price changes of China's top 10 internet giants have formed a clear three-tier pattern:

In the first echelon (above $100 billion market value), Tencent remains the "super leader," Alibaba is catching up, and Pinduoduo follows closely. As of December 31, Tencent continued to top the list of Chinese internet companies with a market value of $728.7 billion, while Alibaba ranked second with $351.6 billion. Pinduoduo secured third place with $161.6 billion. This top-tier ranking remained the same as at the end of 2024, but the market value gap and growth pace have seen new changes. In terms of market value, Tencent's "super leader" position remains unshakable, but compared to the end of 2024, the gap between Alibaba and Tencent has narrowed. In the same period of 2024, Alibaba's market value was less than half of Tencent's (at the end of 2024, Tencent was $495 billion, Alibaba was $201.9 billion), and in 2025, Alibaba's catch-up effect was evident. In terms of stock price performance, Alibaba became the "growth dark horse" of the first echelon with a 77% annual increase, surpassing Tencent's 45%. Pinduoduo, relying on the explosive growth of Temu's cross-border e-commerce, solidified its market value above $160 billion with a 17% annual stock price increase. Although its growth rate was not as high as Alibaba's, it has firmly established its position as the "second pole of e-commerce." Image source: pexels

The second echelon, with market values around $100 billion, consists of Xiaomi, NetEase, and Meituan. Xiaomi, with a market value of $131.5 billion, entered the top of the second echelon, with its stock price up 14% during the year. Its automotive business briefly pushed its market value to third place mid-year, and although it fell back to fourth at year-end, the "internet + car" second curve has become an anchor supporting its market value. NetEase ranked fifth with a market value of $88.9 billion, with its stock price surging 62% during the year, second only to Alibaba. Meituan, affected by intensified competition in instant retail, saw its stock price fall 32% during the year, and its market value and ranking also declined, dropping two places. The third echelon consists of Ctrip, Baidu, JD.com, and Kuaishou, with market values in the $30-50 billion range. Ctrip, with a market value of $47.2 billion, is relatively leading within the echelon, with its stock price up 6% during the year. Relying on the steady recovery of the tourism consumption market, it maintained a relatively stable performance among the top players. Baidu ranked eighth in the industry with a market value of $45.5 billion, while Kuaishou secured tenth place with a market value of $35.5 billion. Both companies saw their stock prices surge 57% and 56% respectively during the year, far exceeding the overall 23.45% increase of the Hang Seng Tech Index, reflecting the market's repricing of their AI layouts. In contrast, JD.com ranked ninth with a market value of $40.7 billion. Despite its solid foundation in the domestic e-commerce market, its stock price and market value performance were relatively under pressure amid ongoing industry price wars and high competitive intensity. Overall, the top ten players in China's internet market value remained stable in 2025, but internal rankings changed significantly. Meituan and JD.com saw their market values and stock prices affected by intensified industry competition, while Alibaba, NetEase, Baidu, and Kuaishou received market revaluation in different dimensions.

Revenue Generally Rose But Profits Diverged Again Market value reflects market expectations, but profit is the true yardstick for testing the quality of a business model. We further analyze the 2025 operating conditions of the above internet companies from their performance. From the financial reports of the top ten companies, only Baidu saw a slight decline in revenue, while the other nine achieved positive growth. In terms of growth rate, Xiaomi led with a 32.5% revenue increase. However, in terms of profit performance, the situation is much more complex.

One category of companies saw profit growth decline due to "new business burning cash + industry involution"; the other category found the growth password and steadily pocketed profits. First, look at the players under profit pressure: Pinduoduo's situation is slightly different. Cross-border e-commerce Temu continued to drive overall growth, but overseas subsidies dragged on profits. Even so, its adjusted net profit remained at a high level of 80 billion yuan. The basic market of lower-tier cities plus the expansion space of global e-commerce make its growth momentum still strong. Baidu was simultaneously affected by "pressure on its basic business" and "investment in new businesses." Online marketing revenue has fallen for six consecutive quarters, with platforms like ByteDance diverting traffic and advertisers cutting budgets, directly weakening its earning power. On the other hand, long-term projects such as large model R&D and intelligent driving require huge investments, making it difficult to see returns in the short term, so profits naturally declined.

Now look at the "top students" who steadily earn profits. Their core growth passwords are gaming, automobiles, and AI. Tencent and NetEase remain typical representatives of this category, relying on the entertainment foundation of gaming + social to make steady profits. Tencent's WeChat ecosystem advertising continues to monetize, and top games like "Honor of Kings" maintain high gross margins. In the first three quarters of 2025, Tencent's total gaming revenue exceeded 180 billion yuan. NetEase's growth in 2025 was not as strong as Tencent's, but its gaming-related revenue in the first three quarters still exceeded 70 billion yuan. Both companies' profit growth rates outpaced the industry average, making them solid "ballast stones." Xiaomi is the biggest winner in the automotive sector. In the first 10 months of 2025, cumulative sales of Xiaomi SU7 exceeded 230,000 units, and Xiaomi YU7 exceeded 80,000 units. The impressive sales performance drove its revenue in the first three quarters to grow 32.5% year-on-year, and with improved efficiency in existing businesses, its adjusted net profit grew 73.5% year-on-year.

As for AI, its role in 2025 is gradually becoming clear. Although it has not yet become a direct profit engine, it is becoming an important variable. Alibaba introduced AI in e-commerce to improve operational efficiency; Tencent deployed large models in more than 900 scenarios such as WeChat and Tencent Meeting, driving marketing service revenue up 21% year-on-year; Kuaishou's Kling AI generated over 300 million yuan in revenue in Q3, with global users exceeding 45 million. Some companies have already explored commercialization in specific scenarios. In summary, the Chinese internet industry in 2025 is no longer a simple scale expansion competition. Companies that embrace efficiency and innovation will occupy advantageous positions in the next round of competition.

Mid-tier Catch-up: Who Is Approaching the Top Ten? Who Is Still Stuck? With the top ten internet giants' pattern basically stable, companies ranked 11th to 20th by market value constitute the most resilient mid-tier camp in China's internet industry. They showed strong stock price gains over the past year, reflecting the market's recognition of their potential in niche tracks. In terms of stock price performance, Giant Network led the list with a 245% increase. The overseas version of "ZT Online" became a hit, and "Supernatural Action Group" became a market dark horse. Combined with market expectations for AI games, it attracted capital pursuit. BOSS Zhipin, Alibaba Health, and Tencent Music followed, benefiting from the recovery of the recruitment market, policy support for medical e-commerce, and the revaluation of music copyright and content assets. However, high stock price gains do not equal high growth certainty. These companies' current market values are generally concentrated at the $10 billion level, with a clear gap from the top ten. Even if Giant Network's stock price has more than doubled, its market value (about $16.6 billion) is still less than half of Kuaishou's, which ranks tenth. More critically, some companies face development bottlenecks. For example, KE Holdings is dragged down by the downturn in real estate transactions, and its core business lacks new growth points. iFlytek has leading technology but slow commercialization, with long payment cycles for education and government AI projects. Looking at the historical evolution of the top ten list, companies ranked 11th-20th that truly have the potential to break upward are mainly concentrated in two categories: first, players that have hit emerging tracks such as AI and short dramas; second, leaders in niche tracks. The former may rapidly achieve user scale expansion and commercial monetization; the latter, if they can continuously strengthen differentiated advantages and combine with industry valuation repair dividends, may gradually approach the top ten threshold. Tencent Music has already verified this potential with actual performance. In the first half of 2025, relying on steady growth in its main business and optimistic expectations for the acquisition of Ximalaya, its stock price soared and it successfully entered the top ten by market value. Whether it can maintain its top position in the future depends on the realization of new growth curves, including commercialization progress in areas such as overseas market expansion. Another promising player is Kingsoft Office. As a leader in domestic office software, its ToC business foundation is solid. In the first half of 2025, WPS personal business revenue was 1.75 billion yuan, accounting for 65.8%. The key to growth still lies in whether the ToB business can achieve scale breakthroughs. If it can leverage AI technology to open up large-scale subscription channels for government and enterprise customers, it may open up new market value growth space. In summary, internet companies ranked 11th-20th have become an important window for the market to observe the next round of changes, but in the short term, the top-tier pattern is still difficult to substantially shake. Those with real upward breakthrough potential are still a few players who can break through their own limitations or release global expansion potential. In the internet world where technology iteration and track reconstruction are accelerating, there are no eternal kings, only eternal changes. Tencent is strengthening its ecosystem, Alibaba is regaining its edge, Pinduoduo is sailing overseas, Xiaomi is driving toward smart cars, Baidu is betting on large models, and Meituan is fighting hard in local life services—each is answering the same question in its own way: Where is the next growth point? Some regard AI as a lifeline, others see globalization as the key to breaking the game; some cut costs and improve efficiency internally, others tell stories and seek mergers and acquisitions externally; some have just caught their breath from the subsidy war and are diving into the new battlefield of AIGC. And the answer still lies in time and innovation.

【Moving Toward C-end】The 11th China FMCG Conference Time: March 16-18, 2026 Location: Chengdu, China