Race between US and Chinese internet giants heating up, analyst predicts

Dancers perform underneath the logo of Tencent at the Global Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing May 6, 2014. [Photo/Agencies]

A handful of US and Chinese internet giants are expected to do battle with each other in the next chapter of global internet competition, according to venture capitalist and former dotcom star analyst Mary Meeker, the Financial Times reported.

Meeker released her annual internet trends report, a guide to the global internet and technology industry's development, on Wednesday in the United States.

The expansion of internet companies in the last half-decade has been "epic" in Meeker's eyes. She pointed out that the rise of internet giants has not only brought threats to companies in other industries, but has triggered turf wars between themselves as they expand beyond their initial markets.

"People don't spend enough time looking at how intense the competition is," Meeker said to the Financial Times.

Five of the world's top six most valuable companies are internet companies, which includes Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook, according to rankings compiled by Bloomberg in April.

Chinese internet giant Tencent is also in the top 10.

Meeker said the internet markets in China and India have strongly benefited the two countries' economies.

In addition, their mobile payment infrastructure is leading the world.

Meeker said as the digital service market in India is expected to increase rapidly, both US and Chinese internet giants regard it as "a global priority".

Tencent made a strategic investment in Flipkart, India's biggest e-commerce firm, this April.

And Chinese fintech giant Ant Financial Services Group, Alibaba's payment affiliate and owner of Alipay, has acquired a stake in Paytm, India's largest mobile wallet operator by user number.

Meeker believes that US companies such as Amazon are making more aggressive approaches in new markets after they learned lessons from their failures of marching into China.

"These companies are making sure they put more capital to work earlier," Meeker said.

She expected that new companies will dominate emerging categories of online activity just as Uber and Didi Chuxing have dominated ride hailing.