We all know that China has set up a different internet of its own where it closely monitors its citizens for the kind of content being circulated with people. The country is somewhat disconnected with the world and lives in its own internet bubble. This also means that they don't have access to the apps, services and websites like we do.
But that doesn't mean they're limited by any means. China has gone ahead and made clones of apps we love, to make people's lives convenient albeit without user privacy and heavy scrutiny by the Chinese government. Here are the apps China uses as replacements in various walks of their life.
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In case you didn't know, Google is banned in China, along with Google services. This includes Google Search, Play Store, YouTube and other Google apps that make our lives simpler. People in China use Baidu as their search engine, which might not be as good as Google, but it definitely gets the job done with over 2 billion active users.
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Just like us, people in China love shopping online. Following the trend of not allowing outside applications in the country, people in China use Pinduoduo e-commerce platform for buying their commodities online. Other e-commerce brands that are quite popular in China include Taobao.com and Tmall.com.
The most common video streaming platform is owned by the makers of PUBG Mobile - Tencent. Tencent Video is one of the most popular video platforms in China and according to one estimate as of March 2019, it has over 900 million mobile monthly active users, and 89 million subscribers.
China has its own music streaming platform, too. While others globally love using Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube Music, China has KuGou music. Owned by Tencent, it enjoys more than 450 million monthly active users and 28 percent of market share, according to 2019 estimates.
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Messaging apps have to be one of the most common ways of communication. Heck, people nowadays prefer texting than actually calling. While India loves using WhatsApp, China loves WeChat. WeChat enjoys over a billion active users as reported by the end of 2018. How cool is that?
Yes, the don't even get Facebook and Twitter! However, they have Weibo, which has become the most popular social media platform in China with over 462 million users. China doesn't enjoy social media as we do. We love sharing about current events or wrongdoings about our government or officials on Facebook and Twitter, but they can't really do that as all posts are monitored.?
TikTok is the biggest craze among the youth in India, and in China this craze is seen on Douyin. Surprisingly, they're almost the same app and are created by the same developer too- Bytedance. What's also similar is the logo! The only difference is with the scrutiny on the app by the Chinese government, as is the case with every app.
Whenever we have a question in our head, the one place we have to quench that thirst for knowledge is Quora. Sadly, China doesn't have Quora, but it does have Zhihu. Zhihu enjoys over 450 million active users.?
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While in India we love using Google Pay ($81 billion global transactions) and BHIM, The most common wallet app in China is WeChat Pay with over 900 million active users. Ali Baba's wallet service Ali Pay comes at a close second with over 870 million users.?
Just like social media, China keeps a strict pull on the mainstream media promoting only the good about the Chinese government. Users across the globe use Apple News, Google News, Flipboard etc whereas Chinese people have access to Tencent News which accounts for over 70% of China mobile news apps with over 100 million active users.
Google Maps is the messiah whenever we get lost enroute, and it is always there to our rescue. People in China use Autonavi for their navigation needs to drive through the country. Auto Navi is owned by Ali Baba with over 100 million active users.
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Just like India, the United States and other countries across the globe, China too has cab sharing or ride-sharing apps. Although it doesn't have Uber, it's got DiDi that is commonly used across the country. DiDi serves 550 million users across over 400 cities in China.?
Airbnb has made stay during travels more affordable. While China doesn't really have Airbnb, they have Xiaozhu. With its network across major cities in China, the platform has over 500,000 listings in over 650 cities across the globe and enjoys over 20 million users.
Booking flights and hotel rooms online is a boon to plan a trip safely and responibly. While we have access to sites like Expedia and Booking.com, China uses a website called CTrip. While CTrip has over 300 million registered users what's fascinating is that nearly half of its monthly active users come from outside of China.?
Tinder is the one-stop app for online dating for users across the globe with over 50 million users. In China, they have TanTan and Momo. Momo enjoys the largest user base with over 180 million active users, whereas TanTan has over 90 million active users.?
Now coming to cloud storage, while people across the globe use Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure to store data and files over the cloud users in China are limited to their Chinese counterparts: Tencent Cloud and Alibaba Cloud.