On the evening of November 4, news emerged that QuestMobile released its latest "China Mobile Internet Autumn Report" on November 3.
The report shows that TENCENT (00700), Douyin Group, and Alibaba firmly hold the first tier, with fierce market competition.
Data shows that as of September 2026, TENCENT ranked first among Chinese internet companies in user scale with 1.28 billion deduplicated total users (APP + mini programs), topping the list for the ninth consecutive year with a solid dominant position. Douyin Group and Alibaba followed closely with 1.259 billion and 1.258 billion respectively.
The report also pointed out that short drama videos and short videos have become the core engines of industry time growth. In September 2026, the net increase in total usage time for short drama video and short video APP industries reached 13.329 billion hours and 5.717 billion hours respectively, ranking TOP2 in time growth tracks.
QuestMobile data shows that in September 2026, Hongguo Free Short Dramas reached 430 million monthly active users, a year-on-year increase of 81.8%, topping the APP short drama application monthly active list; TENCENT's Green Bubble Short Dramas embedded in the WeChat ecosystem reached 156 million monthly active users, topping the WeChat mini program short drama application monthly active list. This product quickly gained scale by relying on WeChat's social relationship chain and Video Account traffic diversion, and is now the second largest in the short drama industry, with significant growth speed.
In addition, the report mentioned that focusing on supply-side head players, AI-native APPs as a whole have entered a new stage of "scale has tiers, growth has differentiation, operations depend on delivery." The magnitude differences of head applications confirm scale tiers, while year-on-year and quarterly fluctuations highlight growth differentiation, and the real deep water zone lies in whether delivery power can complete the transformation from attention to transactions.
QuestMobile data shows that in September 2026, among the TOP10 AI-native APPs by monthly active users, Doubao, Qianwen, DeepSeek, and Yuanbao ranked in the top four, corresponding to user scales of 420 million, 158 million, 123 million, and 37.33 million, with year-on-year growth of 143.6%, 5076.6%, -15.2%, and 13.6% respectively. In September 2026, Doubao had 72 monthly per capita usage times and 132.5 minutes of monthly per capita usage time; DeepSeek and Yuanbao had 65.9 and 38.7 monthly per capita usage times, and 136.7 and 78.6 minutes of monthly per capita usage time.
In terms of gaming business, report data shows that in September 2026, among the TOP10 mobile game Apps by monthly active users, TENCENT occupied 8 spots, with a total monthly active of approximately 341 million. Among them, Honor of Kings ranked second in the entire industry with 129 million monthly active users, second only to Happy Elimination's 161 million; Delta Force and Peace Elite ranked third and fourth with 66.75 million and 35.47 million monthly active users respectively. The report also mentioned that during the Nagoya Asian Games, Honor of Kings became the top esports event with its massive player base.
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