DISQUS

Ratgeber Gesundheit · 9 months ago

Its pretty obvious. Look at the population of China. No enough survey or analysis can beat the estimated users recording. This is an example of "let the number of the populace do the talking."

Eric Eldon · 9 months ago

I don't get your point here. There are more users in the world than there are internet users in China, obviously.

calvin · 9 months ago

QQ is a public company listed in Hong Kong. Look at the financial report, and you'll find out it makes more money than FaceBook or Myspace. That is a better measurement than user count.

Eric Eldon · 9 months ago

Right now, that's true. But also, MySpace has the most US users (also, for now, the most valuable ad market). The big question is how valuable the average user might be in the future. If Facebook can get the most users in the world and it can figure out how to monetize, one day it will make the most money.

Benjamin · 9 months ago

Tencent will announce soon its 2008 figures and looking at the first 3 quarters of 2008, they will likely hit the 1 billion USD revenue mark. Profit should be in the 500 million USD range.
If you remember MySpace was bought for less than 600 million USD, it means they could buy one MySpace a year simply based on cash flow. All this with almost no online advertising revenues. It is probably a good idea for MySpace and Facebook to start looking into digital goods ^_^

Eric Eldon · 9 months ago

Both MySpace and Facebook are looking into digital goods -- but certainly Tencent is in the lead in that department. MySpace is also nearing the $1 billion revenue mark, albeit driven by more traditional forms of advertising.

Ielad · 9 months ago

if someone quesitons the truthfulness of the self-made report by QQ, he should question the self-made report by Facebook as well.

Eric Eldon · 9 months ago

Sure. Facebook's self-reported monthly active user numbers typically come in far below what third-party analytics firms say it gets (as I mentioned in the article). To your point, why _does_ Facebook report smaller numbers about itself than third parties do about it? Other social networks don't do that.

Shane · 9 months ago

@Benjamin, that's sick. Talking about easy cash. Do you know how they're able to achieve a 50% profit margin?

Dang! China is the Phoenix. I don't understand why anyone would question the fact that Chinese sites can be world leaders. We've become complacent by being so US centric. Being of Chinese decent, I can tell you that the Chinese love making money more then we do. Who would have ever thought that we, the US would ever be owing or borrowing so much money from China. China who is still considered a developing country!

I know nothing about Qzone. So this is just a brain fart! It would be funny if an "unknown" Chinese company such as Tencent bought a US social networking site and applied their business model. The obvious kinks are localization factors! But this could end the endless debate on 'how do we make money'! Anyway, this could be something that Facebook or MySpace could look into ;)

Facebook only recently added IM. Maybe Facebook was taking a page out of Qzone's success with IM. "Industry analysts believe that Tencent’s instant messaging tool QQ is a crucial factor leading to the high loyalty of the users to Qzone" IM = stickiness

Eric Eldon · 9 months ago

Shane, I'd say the success of Chinese social networks in making money from virtual goods has already made them global leaders in that respect.

"Localizing" on the other hand, is a challenge for any company looking to expand into a new market, Chinese or not (just look at outside social networks trying to move into China). Most Chinese web companies that I'm aware have stayed focused on the domestic market if for no other reason than that's the market they're best positioned to take advantage of.

Shane · 9 months ago

So true about "Localizing". Stick with what you know! The reasons why the iPhone isn't taking off in Japan popped into my head after I submitted - OOP's!

The Qzone stats are just staggering. I'm going to start following and researching Qzone.

TedHoward · 9 months ago

I've been amazed for years that Silicon Valley doesn't seem to know or talk about Tencent. They've been running a massive and growing empire for years. The Chinese government, always concerned about control of exchange rates, even intervened with Tencent's QQ coins over a concern that QQ coins could rival the yuan as a valid Chinese currency.

Another social network that Silicon Vallley rarely mentions is Microsoft's Live ID and Messenger networks. I've seen many numbers, and they're all around 300-500M actives depending on the exact service in question.

Eric Eldon · 9 months ago

VentureBeat has covered Tencent, on and off (we've been pretty focused on Silicon Valley). I have not seen any stats like those about Live ID/Messenger -- got a link?

TedHoward · 9 months ago

My comment about the valley was based more on my impression of people here, not on VentureBeat's coverage. I have noticed an amazing bubble-like focus on the valley in most tech coverage. Kudos for venturing out of the valley and covering Tencent at all. There are amazing stories to told about that company, IMO.

240M active in one month: http://lewisshepherd.wordpress.com/2008/06/25/t...
460M, which likely includes non-active: http://dev.live.com/liveid/
300M+, which sounds more like some version of active users: http://www.viawindowslive.com/WindowsLiveID.aspx
380M with 1.2B authentications per day: http://winliveid.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!AEE1B...
There are plenty more such numbers. Just search for '"live id" millions'. Yes, they are almost all first-party numbers but the basic story is quite clear. I haven't seen a count of under 200M for Live ID (Passport, etc) in years.

Aw · 9 months ago

QQ is a company for money, only money. All their service is based on getting more money from their users. They offered a lot of ranking system and virtual possessions to attract more and more young people to pay a lot a day.

But finally, IMO, when internet in China turn from a Entertainment one to a utility industry, QQ.com would face a lot more problems.

glennan · 9 months ago

I think www.TattooOrNot.com with their 267 user will be bigger than both Qzone & Facebook.

Hmmmmm...........

OxMan · 7 months ago

Most Chinese internet companies are only interested in Chinese market since the market itself is huge, in terms of number of users and average spending per user. Thus focus, focus, focus is the key.

The only exception is alibaba.com, it's the global B2B. well, it must be in and out of china