Lai Lin Thomala
Research expert covering Greater China
Social media in China - statistics & facts
China is the world's largest social media market with highly engaged and mobile-savvy users. Its market composition varies considerably from the rest of the world. Due to the “Great Firewall” of China, as the Chinese government’s internet censorship project is commonly called, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other leading international social media players, are all blocked in the country. However, the Chinese social media market is not incomparable with its western counterparts. China’s media landscape in terms of social networking almost mirrors that of the rest of the world except that each of these sites is a domestically engineered platform.
When it comes to microblogging, Chinese users have their local version of X (formerly known as Twitter) - Sina Weibo, with 140 to 2,000 Chinese characters allowing in one post. It has been used extensively as a space for free-speech with a significant amount of online users. Other prominent Chinese social media platforms include: Youku Tudou (equivalent of YouTube), Douyin (Chinese sister app of TikTok), Baidu Tieba (a search engine forum), Zhihu (the Quora of China), Xiaohongshu (an Instagram-like social commerce site), and Douban (an interest-based community).
Who are the social media giants in China?
Compared to a few major players dominating the western market, China has a more dynamic, diverse, and competitive social media landscape, despite under speech censorship, with platforms rising and falling on a faster timescale. Thanks to its versatile functionality, Tencent’s WeChat has long been the most popular social networking space. It is a super version of Facebook with ride-hailing, food delivery, mobile payment, and other services all in one app. Owing to its huge userbase, marketing and e-commerce have been thriving on WeChat.When it comes to microblogging, Chinese users have their local version of X (formerly known as Twitter) - Sina Weibo, with 140 to 2,000 Chinese characters allowing in one post. It has been used extensively as a space for free-speech with a significant amount of online users. Other prominent Chinese social media platforms include: Youku Tudou (equivalent of YouTube), Douyin (Chinese sister app of TikTok), Baidu Tieba (a search engine forum), Zhihu (the Quora of China), Xiaohongshu (an Instagram-like social commerce site), and Douban (an interest-based community).
