With concerts and pop stars, Tencent’s Channels emerges as big challenger to short video giants Douyin, Kuaishou

Tencent Holdings, China’s most valuable tech giant, has made significant inroads in its bid to attract a wider audience for short videos on its super app WeChat, as it seeks to challenge the dominance of TikTok’s Chinese version, Douyin, and the country’s second largest player, Kuaishou.

The Shenzhen-based company said in its latest quarterly report that the volume of videos and total viewing time on Channels, its WeChat-based short-video platform, saw “significant growth”, thanks to more entertainment programming and improved algorithms.