BATX is an acronym standing for Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and Xiaomi, the four biggest[1] tech firms in China, often compared to Big Tech (Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta)[2] in the United States. BATX were some of the first tech companies started in the 2000s during the rise of the Chinese technology revolution and quickly became widely used in China. Notably after 2015, some other tech companies like Huawei, DiDi, JD, DJI and ByteDance have also become some of the up-and-coming biggest tech giants in the industry.[3][4]
List
History
In 2000, under Chairman Jiang Zemin's instruction, China started the Golden Shield Project to manage the media and information flow within China, in an attempt to protect national security and limit the infiltration of Western propaganda.[19] Under the Golden Shield Project, many American tech companies such as Google, Facebook, Netflix, and the like were denied access into China from the Great Firewall due to their refusal to follow local data laws, while others, such as Microsoft and LinkedIn, were allowed.[20] At the same time, the population of Chinese netizens grew substantially since the introduction of internet in 1994.[19] By 2018, China contains a population of 800 million netizens, 98% of whom are mobile users.[21]
Influences
Baidu
Baidu Search is the most popular search engine in China. Baidu is often contrasted with Google, which is the biggest search engine company founded in United States.[22] Google is banned in China. So Baidu provides an equivalent search experience for China's netizens.[23] Other than Baidu Search, Baidu also provides many different other products, such as Baidu Maps, Baidu Cloud, Baidu Tieba, Baidu Knows, and more, catered to different needs for Chinese netizens. Baidu accounts for 64.55% of the search engine market share in China,[24] and also is the third biggest search engine website in the world.[22]
Alibaba
Other tech companies in China
Although BATX has been a very popular acronym for people when referring to the biggest Chinese tech firms, there are also many other tech firms has picked up after 2010 and also became the leaders in their respective fields. On Forbes' 2019 Global 2000, 20 out of 184 tech companies on the list are from China.[33]
Huawei
Huawei became one of the most well known Chinese tech companies in the world by the 2010s.[34] Founded by Ren Zhengfei at 1987[35] at Shenzhen China, it focuses on information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices.[36] Huawei became the No.1 at Telecommunication network in the world by 2012 and launched its first 5G smartphone, Mate 20 X 5G in July 2019.[37]
See also
References
- Biggest Chinese tech companies: From Alibaba and Huawei to Tencent NS Business, 2019-02-04, retrieved 2019-10-15^
- James Chen. BATX Stocks Investopedia, retrieved 2019-10-17^
- Lucy Hooker, Daniele Palumbo. Why Huawei matters in five charts 2019-05-20, retrieved 2019-10-15