MIIT Ranks Top 100 Chinese Internet Companies

China’s information authority released a list of top 100 Chinese Internet companies on July 27, ranking Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu, JD.com, and NetEase as the top five.

SEE ALSO: Chinese Unicorns: Internet Companies Take a Dominant Position.

Sina, Sohu, Meituan-Dianping, Qihoo 360, and Xiaomi have secured the rest of top ten places in this order. Bytedance, which produced the popular apps Toutiao and Douyin, ranks 11th.

This is the sixth annual release of the report by China’s Ministry of Industry and Informational Technology (MIIT) and the Internet Society of China (ISC). The report measures the Internet companies in the six dimensions of scale, profitability, innovation, growth, influence, and corporate social responsibility.

The new release found an overall increase in the size of these top companies with Alibaba and Baidu leading the pack. Total income and total revenue of these 100 Internet companies has reached 1.72 trillion yuan ($252.4 billion) and 270.7 billion yuan in 2017, an increase of 50.6 percent and 82.6 percent from the same time last year. The two leaders account for over 25 percent of the total income and close to 60 percent of the total revenue of the group.

There is also an application expansion as well as the rise in living standards as results of these Internet companies. Their businesses cover all areas of consumer demand from food, shelter and clothing, to transportation, entertainment and education.

Spending in the areas of research & development (R&D) has exceeded the 100 billion yuan mark in 2017. R&D investment has achieved a year-on-year increase of 41.4 percent to reach 106 billion yuan.

Servicing scopes of Internet companies are expanding as well in terms of business and industry. One fifth of the companies which focus on serving real businesses have served more than 30 million businesses altogether; their revenue accounts for 10 percent of the total.

The list this year also features a rapid rise of unicorns. 18 Chinese unicorns emerged in 2017, an increase of 38.5 percent. The list includes the newly public Xiaomi, Alibaba‘s Ant Financial, and JD Finance which recently finished their Series B financing.

The last point to note is the location diversification of these companies. Although Beijing, Shanghai, and the Guangdong province had the most number of companies on the list, these 100 companies in fact came from 17 provinces and municipalities. Total income by companies headquartered in mid-western China has increased by 73.45 percent to reach 30.7 billion yuan.

The report this year also reviewed some of achievements and milestones in the past half a decade, including the total revenue increase and the jump in R&D investments.

Featured Image Source: boerse.ard.de.