Tencent, Alibaba become the most valuable companies in Asia

Chinese IT companies have become two most valuable companies in Asia. Samsung Electronics has gone two notches down and ranked third in market capitalization of Asian companies despite its strongest earnings performance ever in 2017. Market values of Tencent and Alibaba grew as much as 2.1 times year-on-year, while Samsung’s market value increased 46 percent over the same period.

The Nikkei Shimbun reported on Wednesday that Chinese Internet giant Tencent led the ranking with a valuation of 493.3 billion U.S. dollars as of December 29, 2017. Alibaba, China's largest online retailer, was the second valuable company with its valuation of 440.7 billion dollars. “Their valuations are as high as valuations of American IT colossuses such as Facebook and Amazon,” the newspaper said. “The growth was mostly driven by China’s consumer market.” Samsung with a valuation of 342.8 billion dollars dropped to the third spot.

Tencent was listed in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2004 and Alibaba was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014. Tencent and Alibaba are two biggest mobile payment service providers in China, and the two companies are setting their sights on expanding service coverage to taxi dispatch, bicycle sharing and fresh food delivery. PetroChina was the most valuable company in China until 2014, but IT companies have moved up to the top, the Japanese newspaper added. Seven Chinese companies have registered their name in top 10, while Toyota Motor, which ranked seventh, was the only Japanese company.

The newspaper also named 30 Asian companies whose valuations increased the most over the decade. Among them were 14 Chinese companies, and “China power” seems real. Needless to say, Tencent acquired the top position. Tencent’s valuation jumped 37 times from 13.5 billion dollars at the end of 2007. “China is overwhelmed with many challenges, such as growing debts of local governments and corporations, but personal consumption has shown two-digit growth every year along with China’s annual growth in 6-percent range,” the Nikkei said to single out what has been behind the advance of Chinese companies. Among Korean companies, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix ranked second and thirteenth, respectively.

Won-Jae Jang peacechaos@donga.com