Chinese technology giants are starting to invest in the metaverse — the latest buzzword in internet technology. It’s a term with no solid definition, but mainly taken to mean virtual worlds that people will be playing and living in.
In China, the total addressable market for the metaverse could be 52 trillion yuan, or about $8 trillion, Morgan Stanley said in a note published last month. Companies like Tencent, NetEase, TikTok owner ByteDance, and Alibaba could be the frontrunners in this regard among China’s internet companies.
Tencent is the world’s biggest gaming company with a powerful PC and mobile games portfolio. Tencent also owns WeChat, a messaging service with over a billion users with social media aspects. During an earnings call in November, Tencent CEO Pony Ma said the metaverse would be a chance to add growth to existing industries like games.
Meanwhile, ByteDance broadened aggressively into the gaming sector previous year. In August, the company acquired virtual reality headset maker Pico. ByteDance also occupies TikTok, the short-form video app, and the Chinese equivalent of Douyin. The Beijing-headquartered company laid the foundations for VR, social networking, and games.
Investors spend millions of dollars for real estate in the metaverse
Alibaba this year said it hopes to roll out augmented reality glasses for virtual conferences. Augmented reality refers to virtual images that overlay the real world.
Furthermore, this could be a game on the metaverse. NetEase, one of China’s gaming giants, has launch a facility in the southern province of Hainan, concentrating on developing metaverse apps, local media reported on last year. The e-commerce giant has announced a “virtual influencer” named Dong Dong for the Winter Olympics in Beijing. The digital avatar can be found on Alibaba’s Taobao shopping app, provides factual information about the Olympics, and advertises Olympic-related items.
A metaverse is a network of 3D virtual worlds focused on social connection. In futurism and science fiction, the term is often described as a hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, universal virtual world that is facilitated by the use of virtual and augmented reality headsets
This is being predicted that China’s biggest tech names are beginning to experiment and lay the groundwork for future applications. Even Chinese municipalities and regions are looking for opportunities for the metaverse. Previous year, the big city of Shanghai mentioned the metaverse in its five-year development plan for the information technology industry.
