Head-to-Head
Facebook and WhatsApp are huge brands globally but they are not in China and that is not all. In fact, many other top mobile apps and platforms are not available in the world’s most populous country. While there are ways to get around it, there are actually apps that are from China which are equally as good, if not better. One thing for sure, Facebook and Google apps and some that they are related to are difficult to access as they are not from China, unlike Tik-Tok.
Baidu vs Google
While the world has Google Search, China has Baidu. Since Baidu is based in China, it is very much localized for use there. It might not work very well in English (like Google), but it works extremely well in Chinese. Meanwhile, Baidu has its own version of maps which comes with reviews, street views and tips. This is one country where Google Maps lose out as in the bigger cities.
Social and Entertainment
Tinder is not allowed in China as well, which means you can find an alternative to this. In China, you can use Tantan which is a user-friendly app that works very much the same as Tinder. If you do not speak any Chinese, this app might not work for you though. There is another app called Xiaohongshu which is like Instagram but comes with shopping functions. Influencers with a lot of followers can surely use this app to market products and review them.
Messaging Apps
There is no contention here because when it comes to messaging, it will be WeChat which is equivalent to WhatsApp in China. Although WhatsApp has more than a billion active accounts, it will be of no surprise that there are almost no people using WhatsApp there. On the other hand, WeChat is totally different where it has more than 1 billion people active in China. That is almost the same amount of WhatsApp users around the world! WeChat, besides being a chat application is also used for paying for expenses, shopping, booking flights and even splitting the bill!
Audio and Video
When it comes to video, China has its own YouTube and it is called Toudou Youku. This makes sense as China users are not allowed to access YouTube in the country. Toudou Youku has been growing in content and is definitely the place to go for videos when in China.
As for music (audio), QQ Music takes the cake there, as opposed to Spotify or YouTube Musci. QQ Music is after all under the same parent company as WeChat (TenCent) and its library is as many, if not more than Spotify. The basic version is free to listen to with additional benefits for paying users.
