Top 5 Video Application in China

China is today digitalized.

You can do everything online, and you can find internet connections almost everywhere. When you must take a bus, you can watch a TV show directly from your phone while waiting at the bus station.

By the way, long videos such as small ones are liked and watched. Videos are attractive. Quick and easy to find, internet users are enjoying it without difficulties.

Videos emerged in last generations’ life. And the global sanitary crisis of Covid-19 increased the trend. People start to exchange in video lives more than before instead of doing basic calls. When contacts were banned, being able to interact with others and to see them (from a phone) was a bonus.

Same thing for the lesson courses. To avoid the virus transmission, some lessons have been possible online. It is the case of the British brand MelSciences which decides to create chemistry lessons online for Chinese student and children through videos posted on Douyin.

You can also use video to educate yourself about other things such as “How to put make-up on”. A video is more convincing than an article. Did you get the idea ?

Let us watch the 5 best video platforms in China.

#1 DOUYIN 抖音

Douyin is the most popular today. Maybe Tik Tok sounds more familiar to you. It is the same social media but established and controlled by the USA.

It has been launched in September 2016 and required only 2 years to become the application the most uploaded on IOS.

ByteDance, a giant Tech Chinese firm, has created Douyin, the first Chinese application that finds success abroad. Actually, more than 40% of the Douyin users are not Chinese.

Douyin is simple: as a user, you can watch videos of others, selecting categories or not. You just have to do a little movement from up to down with your finger to switch from a video to another.

So easy that it becomes attractive to open the app and to watch more and more videos.

If you decide to share videos yourself, Douyin makes it easy for you too. You can use filters, kinds of musics or visual effects to join your content and to make it more convenient.

Lately, people also use it to buy products. If you are a seller, you can promote your product online. While watching your videos, internet users will have the choice to click on a link. This one will lead them to an eCommerce platform to buy the product. Douyin is a new way to sell a lot in China

And it is even more useful when sellers use the platform to promote product on livestreaming videos. They did not record before, but they interact with the viewers online and in live.

Viewers feel closer to recorders.

#2 KUAISHOU 快手

Kuaishou has been launched five years after the famous pleasant and likable Douyin app. And it is today the direct concurrent of it.

The major difference is that Kuaishou got the chance to be introduced to the SEHK (the Hong Kong Stock Exchange). And it did it well: Kuaishou is the higher introduction noticed since 2018 into the technology sector and field with 5.5 billion euros.

It counts today more than 480 million users. Such a good activity when we know that Kuaishou is today the favorite video platform for the provinces of China. Kuaishou is used by many brands to support their e-Commerce activities and is an important way to promote products in smaller cities.

#3 YOUKU 优酷

Youku, it is called the Chinese Youtube.

This video sharing platform have been launched one year after the American famous one. You can find everything you want on it. You just have to write the subject which interested you and then you will get some long video such as small ones proposed.

Contrary to Douyin they are often long: dramas, series, movies, etc.

Cooking, sport, video games, make-up… You can find a lot of different themes on it.

#4 BILIBILI 哔哩哔哩

The number four is also one of the oldest ones. Nicknamed “B site”, it is specialized for animates fans so we can easily say it is a “niche video platform” in China interesting people such as Japanese fans.

Something which differentiates BiliBili from other platforms is its comments option named “Danmu”. Internet users can add comments directly on the video while watching a show. All the viewers can see them and exchange about the content. It creates a social link between BiliBili users. Bilibili has a recent growth of users, +68% and have been listed in Hong Kong stock.

#5 TENCENT VIDEO 腾讯视频

Tencent Video, said Tengxun Shipin in Chinese, is a platform linked to Wechat -the first social media in China-. Thanks to it, Wechat users can add videos to their shared content. A good tool by the way for sellers, when we know that Wechat meets the digital needs of more than 1,225 billion Chinese people and so potential buyers…

When going to China you will inevitably use Wechat, and so its videos application stays one of the most use there.

It offers distractions such as popular movies, TV series and anime from China. WeChat recently launch WeChat Channel, which is short video like Douyin.