The competitive landscape of China’s Internet is ushering in a new change worthy of attention.
On November 3, the "2026 China Mobile Internet Autumn Report" released by QuestMobile showed that as of September 2026, Tencent Holdings continued to rank first in the scale of Chinese Internet enterprise users with a total deduplicated user base of 1.28 billion. At the same time, ByteDance continues to expand its influence in the content consumption field with products such as Douyin, Toutiao, and Hongguo short dramas.
If you connect this set of data with the "Byte Time" that has triggered widespread discussion before, it is not difficult to find that a new industry picture is emerging: Tencent and Bytedance are coexisting and are becoming the two most influential Internet platform service providers in China's digital life.
Such a dual-power pattern reflects that China’s Internet competition ecosystem is still highly active. Although the number of users of leading platforms continues to expand, the Internet industry is far from entering an era where one company can sit back and relax. From short videos and micro-series to games and artificial intelligence, a new round of market competition is still taking place.
In the past ten years or so, China's Internet has experienced multiple rounds of industrial changes, from portals and search engines to mobile social networking and short video platforms. Every time a new technology or product emerges, it almost rewrites the original competitive landscape. Market advantages that were once considered unshakable often encounter challenges in new application scenarios.
The current situation is no exception. Take the recent rapid growth of the micro-short drama market as an example: ByteDance’s Hongguo short drama has established a clear first-mover advantage, but Tencent’s Green Bubble short drama launched based on the WeChat ecosystem is also growing rapidly. QuestMobile data shows that in September this year, the monthly active users of Green Bubble short drama reached 156 million, becoming the leading product in the WeChat mini program short drama track.
At the same time, companies such as Kuaishou and Chinese Online are also actively participating in market competition. Especially in the fields of overseas short dramas, IP development and content commercialization, different companies are exploring their own development paths. The emergence of an emerging content market means the emergence of new traffic entrances, business models and user needs, and also means that the original competitive landscape may be rewritten.
The gaming industry can also illustrate this point. QuestMobile data shows that in September this year, Tencent's products accounted for eight of the top ten monthly active users of mobile game apps. Products such as "Honor of Kings" and "Delta Operation" maintained a huge user base, but the number one ranking was "Happy Xiaoxiaole" owned by Le Elements, with 161 million monthly active users.
At the same time, NetEase and other companies are still forming strong competition in different game categories. The diversity of the game market determines that user needs will not be satisfied by a certain gameplay or product for a long time. Whether it is technological innovation, content creativity or gameplay innovation, it may become an opportunity for latecomers to break through the market structure.
This also reminds us that it is necessary to re-understand the scale advantage of the Internet industry. To judge whether a market is dynamic, in addition to observing the share occupied by leading companies, one should also observe whether new products can enter the market, whether consumers have real room for choice, and whether existing companies still need to maintain competitive advantages through continuous innovation.
Looking at the international market, whether it is short videos conquering the world, short plays becoming a new popular literary form, visual models such as seedance becoming the best in the world, and open source models such as kimi taking a new approach, they all represent the steady development of China's Internet industry.
From this perspective, China’s Internet competition is still quite fierce. From the continuous differentiation of the e-commerce landscape to the continuous displacement of content distribution and attention direction, the development of China's Internet has always been accompanied by the continuous competition between old and new forces. Even leading companies with a huge user base must constantly look for new growth space and cope with competition from other platforms and emerging products.
What’s more, artificial intelligence is injecting new variables into this competition. Large models, agents, and new content production methods may reshape the interaction logic and business models of existing Internet products. It is still difficult to predict who will lead the next round of industrial change.
Therefore, it can be said that the mutual pursuit between the leading platforms Tencent and ByteDance, as well as the continued competition between the leading platforms and emerging companies, together constitute an important source of vitality for China's Internet industry.
For a mature Internet market, it is necessary not only to prevent platforms from using market advantages to exclude and restrict competition, but also to recognize the complex relationship between economies of scale, network effects and continuous innovation. What is truly worth maintaining is a fair and open market environment and the possibility of the continuous emergence of new products, new technologies and new enterprises.
A dynamic market does not depend on who can always occupy the first place, but on whoever becomes the first, there will always be someone who can challenge it. (Text/Jiang Xue, source: Beijing Youth Daily)
