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Alibaba v Tencent: The Chinese fight for world domination

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Two Chinese Internet giants: Alibaba, about to launch a New York IPO, versus Tencent its arch rival, which just announced astounding Q1 results. If you’re looking at Chinese tech firms then this is the battle to watch.

Tencent just announced its 2014 Q1 results, smashing all expectations with net income up by sixty percent to $1.04 Billion and revenue up by thirty six percent to $2.95 Billion. The number of users of its flagship mobile messaging app, Wechat, rose 11.5 percent to 396 million.  

Alibaba is about to be floated on the New York stock exchange. Saxo Bank's Head of Equity Strategy Peter Garnry says, that in his view, Alibaba will be the world's second largest internet company after Google. 

Both firms are now competing head to head in the lucrative Chinese internet marketplace, fighting for a share of the 500 million internet users in China. Alibaba dominates the online retail business and Chinese mobile users spend 75% of their time on Tencent's messaging services; Wechat and QQ.

China Market Research Group Business Analyst John Fang has been comparing the two firms which are now in, an often bad-tempered, fight for share of online markets. Both Alibaba and Tencent offer similar services: taxi apps, online finance and retail and both are busy building a global profile.