To put this global trend in perspective, APAC’s consumer internet has never quite been a homogenous one. The search, social, video, and e-commerce ecosystems in APAC, have been split a number of ways for many years, as consumers are inclined to use what is locally relevant, shifting easily between global and local platforms.
China started to define its own ecosystem through governmental necessity from around 2009 setting the stage for today’s Chinese equivalent of FAANG in Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and now Bytedance. They are not only the dominant platform owners in China, but have also recently expanded into emerging markets in Southeast Asia and beyond.
Aside from the Great Chinese Firewall, we are also seeing the emergence of local platforms across APAC that counter a perceived platform consolidation around the FAANG companies. Japan, as is Hong Kong, is still a heavy user of Yahoo! where South Korea has its own Naver and Kakao.
