Tencent is no longer China's most valuable company after its shares dropped 64% since Jan. 2021, wiping $623B in market value, more than any other firm globally
Tencent Holdings Ltd. has lost its title as China's biggest company to liquor giant Kweichow Moutai Co., the latest sign … Tweets: @doomlaser , @jojjeols , and @chinabeigebook Tweets: @doomlaser : @Techmeme @JeannyYu Surprised to learn that TikTok's owner, ByteDance, is still private. Valuation estimate in the ~300 billion range, around where Tencent is valued now after its slide Jojje Olsson / @jojjeols : It might be a bad development indicator for a country when internet and tech companies are losing their highest market value status to a producer of hard liquor. https://www.bloomberg.com/... @chinabeigebook : Doubtful anyone could've foreseen that this would be the headline to ring in the Party Congress: “Tencent Holdings Ltd. has lost its title as #China's biggest company to liquor giant Kweichow Moutai” https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the endpoint of a slide that has been running since Beijing's crackdown began: after the crackdown wiped $823B off Chinese tech giants' combined value in mid-2021, Tencent dropped out of the world's ten largest companies that September, and by August this year Tencent and Alibaba had lost more value than any other stocks globally. Today's milestone is symbolic but sharp — the crown passes not to another tech firm but to Kweichow Moutai, a state-favored liquor maker.
The timing matters because it lands just before the Party Congress, and because the tweet commentary highlights an awkward comparison: ByteDance, still private, is estimated around $300B — roughly where Tencent now sits after its fall, a striking compression of the public-private gap.
First-order effects
- Kweichow Moutai takes over as China's most valuable listed company, meaning no Chinese internet or tech firm holds the top domestic slot — extending the pattern from last year when Tencent fell out of the global top ten entirely.
Second-order effects
- Alibaba, down 65% over the same stretch per the related analysis, faces the same repricing pressure, keeping both firms' currency for stock-based deals and talent retention depressed relative to pre-crackdown levels.
- ByteDance's ~$300B private estimate now sits at parity with Tencent's shrunken public valuation, sharpening questions about whether private marks can hold if the listed comparables keep falling.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, China's market-value hierarchy keeps rotating away from consumer internet toward sectors aligned with policy priorities — liquor today, and with new state VC funds backing early-stage hard-tech startups, potentially semiconductors and industrial technology next — a structural reordering rather than a cyclical dip.
The trend: China's most valuable companies are shifting from consumer internet platforms to policy-aligned incumbents as the regulatory crackdown permanently reprices the tech sector.