The Metaverse combines “virtual reality and a digital second life,” two concepts currently trending in the tech industry.
Metaverses are virtual worlds that allow for widespread online interaction. A growing number of Chinese corporations are actively exploring the potential of the virtual world. Let us explore today top Chinese metaverse companies.
My name is Almira Lopez; I act like a CMO and think like a boss. I’m a Metaverse marketing strategist, and this is the best place for you to learn about Metaverse and how to market it all. So if that sounds good to you, you’re excited?
So, let’s get started!
Upcoming Chinese Metaverse to See in 2023
| 1 | Tencent |
| 2 | Huawei |
| 3 | Alibaba |
| 4 | ByteDance |
| 5 | NetEase |
| 6 | Bilibili |
| 7 | MiHoYo |
| 8 | Games |
| 9 | Xiaomi |
| 10 | ZTE |
Top 10 Chinese Metaverse Companies
1. Tencent
As it stands, Tencent, top in our list of Chinese Metaverse Companies, is China’s most formidable rival for dominance in the international Metaverse. WeChat, Kogou Music (China’s Spotify), Tencent Meetings (China’s Zoom), and substantial stakes in other global metaverse players in their own right, such as Fortnite creator Epic Games (40%) and Activision Blizzard (5%), Ubisoft (5%), Roblox (joint venture) and even Snapchat (12%), give the media conglomerate a strong foothold in the online realm.
Tencent Launches Extended Reality Unit to Tackle the Metaverse Market
https://news.bitcoin.com/tencent-launches-extended-reality-unit-to-tackle-the-metaverse-market/
Tencent has been on a cybernetic hiring spree for immersive game developers, investing in every game studio within its sights and registering around 100 trademarks for the Metaverse. Compared to its rivals, it is light years ahead due to the impressive roster of portfolio companies or collaborators it has assembled to help build the Metaverse. Epic Games is a world-renowned video game developer; Roblox is a popular platform for user-created content; Soul and WeChat are popular social media apps; Avakin Life is a leading creator of immersive 3D video games and simulations; and Amazon Web Services is a renowned cloud computing company (Tencent Cloud).
2. Huawei
The Chinese telecom behemoth is racing to be the first to market with 5G technology.
The business strategy for entering the Metaverse will be diversified. It has also begun looking into software for electric vehicles.
The metaverse experience was a joint effort between Huawei and Beijing Shougang Park and was completed in January.
Users took part in augmented reality group-killing games by scanning a QR code. The abandoned factories of Shougang Park served as the inspiration for this game’s setting.
Also Read: List of Cute Avatars in Robolox
3. Alibaba
The e-commerce behemoth’s 2016 investment of $790 million in the augmented-reality unicorn Magic Leap was an early demonstration of its metaverse ambitions. Since then, the firm has poured over $1 billion into augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) companies.
In May 2021, Alibaba introduced the world to Ayayi, its first AI-powered celebrity idol. Her facial expressions and body language are eerily similar to humans. In December, Alibaba launched its “XR lab” with the acronym “extended reality,” a term used in the industry to describe virtual and augmented reality products. In addition, the company’s Zoom-like workplace app, DingTalk, has recently released new AR glasses that will allow users to conduct virtual meetings.
4. ByteDance
In August 2018, ByteDance, owner of TikTok, paid 9 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) to acquire Pico, the largest virtual reality headset manufacturer in China and the third largest in the world.
ByteDance has a better chance than Meta did in 2014 when it bought Oculus to crack the Chinese market and challenge Tencent in the social Metaverse.
TikTok, for example, boasts 1 billion monthly active users worldwide, so that both businesses can boast a sizable customer base. Su from Morningstar notes that ByteDance lags behind Tencent in content, design, and cloud storage infrastructure.
ByteDance released a beta version of their social media app Party Island (or Paiduidao in Chinese) in January, where users could make their avatars, talk to one another, and arrange to meet in real life.
5. NetEase
One of China’s other gaming behemoths, NetEase, is a rival to Tencent. The company excels in virtual reality/augmented reality, artificial intelligence, cloud gaming, and blockchain.
NetEase’s artificial intelligence division introduced Yaotai in August 2021. Yaotai is a virtual meeting system using virtual reality technology to unite people. Earlier this year, the gaming giant announced its intention to launch its user-generated content platform, marking a significant expansion into the Metaverse (a competitor with Tencent and Roblox). Some of the most well-known game designers believe that user-generated games open the door to the Metaverse because they encourage constant social engagement in a stable, digitally immersive environment.
Since 2016, when one of its virtual reality (VR) games was available on Google’s Daydream platform (an early iteration of VR gaming discontinued in 2019 due to low adoption), NetEase has been incorporating VR/AR elements into its games. NetEase made a sizable investment in 2017 in Niantic, the company responsible for the augmented reality phenomenon Pokemon Go.
NetEase has a robust technology stack that could be used to put a metaverse idea into action. With proper implementation, it can compete successfully with larger rivals.
Also Read: How to Start a Company or Business in Metaverse
6. Kuaishou Bilibili
To compete with TikTok, the Beijing Kuaishou Technology Co., makers of Kuaishou, have spent heavily on smart glasses, AI technology, metaverse trademarks, and content.
Guan Xiaofang, a virtual influencer for Kuaishou, attracted over a million viewers for her first hourlong live streaming e-commerce show in November.
The videos hosted on Bilibili, which operates as a video-sharing website, are primarily related to manga, video games, and anime.
In December, it began beta testing UPowerchain, a solution that issues ownership certificates for digital works and provides:
- A lookup tool for on-chain information.
- Indicating that it has entered the blockchain.
- The technology is underlying the Metaverse.
Bilibili released the Gede digital art avatars with a subscription cap of around 2,000. Geddes are worthless digital symbols that can be used as avatars on the site.
Through the “Virtual Cinderella Project,” it and Sony Music Entertainment hope to increase exposure for digital singers and musicians worldwide.
7. MiHoYo
MiHoYo, founded in 2012, is a Shanghai-based video game developer best known for its 2017 open-world role-playing game (RPG) Genshin Impact, which ranked first in worldwide sales.
MiHoYo is a major investor in the “social metaverses” company Soul, which developed a social media app for the Chinese youth of Generation Z. MiHoYo has come on board as a private investor for the proto-metaverse app that has filed for an IPO in the United States. In addition, MiHoYo maintains research facilities devoted to metaverse-related endeavors. MiHoYo opened a lab in 2018 specifically for studying the human-brain-computer interface. Genshin Impact’s CEO and creator Cài Hàoy has said the company was inspired by his fascination with open-world ideas and is a forerunner to the video game industry’s current Metaverse.
Although MiHoYo is a relatively small company compared to the others on this list, it focuses on the metaverse vision. With an uncanny ability to predict consumer tastes like that of Steve Jobs, Cai hopes to build a virtual world that one billion people will want to live in by 2030. His company is working to make virtual environments as lifelike as those seen in The Matrix.
MiHoYo is amid a global expansion that has seen the company hire new employees and open new offices like the one in Montreal. Given its talented team of game designers, MiHoYo is poised to become a major player in China’s burgeoning metaverse market.
8. Lilith Games
Lilith Games, founded in 2013, is one of China’s top five game publishers by revenue and is located in Shanghai. The company is well-known for its award-winning mobile games, including AFK Arena and Rise of Kingdoms. Like its competitor MiHoYo, Lilith has 1,900 employees spread across 180 counties and regions in China and is preparing for a global expansion.
Adding new metaverse products is part of the growth plan. A 200-person team at Lilith is hard at work on the Da Vinci Project, the company’s own Roblox-like UGC platform. This project debuted its first user-generated content app, BOOM!PARTY, in the summer of 2016, can be downloaded from the Google Play Store in select Southeast Asian countries.
In addition, Lilith has started working on its stack of metaverse technologies. Lilith Games invested in Qiyuan World, a top general artificial intelligence company founded by ex-Alibaba executives, in August as part of a $47 million Series A. It also spearheaded an $8 million funding round in the cloud gaming platform Telekinesis Technology in May.
Also Read: Top 10 Metaverse Marketing Agency in USA
9. Xiaomi
Xiaomi is a mammoth in consumer electronics, often compared to Apple for its user-centric approach to product design. Regarding market share, the tech giant trails only Samsung and Huawei and is present in over 80 countries and regions worldwide.
The maker of high-tech home appliances made headlines last year when it entered the electric vehicle market. The firm is also competing for virtual land in the Metaverse. According to Yuanchuang Metaverse, it has 129 patents related to the Metaverse, but its approach thus far has been unusual. According to reports in Chinese media, Xiaomi plans to enter the market with a mobile payment system made specifically for the Metaverse. Xiaomi invested financially in VR studio Sky Limit Entertainment, founded by acclaimed filmmaker Zhang Ymou, in December.
A representative for the company recently confirmed the strategy, saying that, unlike Tencent, Xiaomi will focus on its strengths in the Metaverse. It aspires to become indispensable in any metaverse future by developing payment systems, smartphone technology, video displays, and more.
10. ZTE
ZTE Corporation is a Chinese multinational telecommunications corporation founded in Shenzhen in 1985. ZTE has a sophisticated AI infrastructure; the company’s AI technology placed third in a global neural network competition last November. ZTE has hired serious talent in the Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality (AR), and blockchain infrastructure projects, in addition to being an industry leader in 5G networks and computing technologies, both central to the Metaverse. ZTE’s subsidiary, Nubia, recently hired a group to work on virtual reality and other metaverse-related projects. ZTE is concentrating heavily on research and development related to augmented and virtual reality.
