Two Chinese internet titans have entered the exclusive US$400 billion (S$544 billion)-and-up club in the tech world, breaking the dominance enjoyed for decades by American companies.

Tencent Holdings Limited,  the owner of messaging app WeChat, and e-commerce giant Alibaba Group are now among the most highest- valued public companies in the world, with valuations twice of tech stalwarts Intel, IBM, and Cisco, and may soon compete on equal footing with Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon.

Robust revenues

On Aug 16, Tencent was reported to have posted a 70% profit surge in its second quarter, riding on its fastest sales growth in 7 years.

This was buoyed by revenues from payment services, online advertising, and smartphone games.

Alibaba was also reported to have doubled its net profit in the latest quarter on Aug 17, beating analysts' estimates of slower growth.

Economists pointed out that Alibaba was closing in on Amazon's market capitalisation, with its value surging up to 87% of Amazon's current value.

Acquisition spree

Looking ahead, the two internet giants that have benefited hugely from a protected home market, have set their sights on overseas expansion.

Alibaba's Alipay is now working with many big American companies such as Paypal, and Yelp, a crowd-sourced review application, to bring more payment and English-language options to consumers.

Recently, it has invested US$1.1 billion (S$1.4 billion) in Jakarta-based e-commerce site Tokopedia, and also made plans in June to increase its shares in Singapore-based e-commerce platform Lazada from 51% to 83%.

Tencent, which is also the world's largest gaming company, is also on an acquisition spree. In Jul 2017, it paid for a 9% stake in the UK's only listed video game developer, Frontier Developments.

In 2014, it bought a 28% stake in South Korea's CJ Games, and also acquired full control over League of Legends' US game company, Riot Games, in 2015.

[related_story]

Top image via here