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E-books and audiobooks
Tech

Online literature: the next battleground for Chinese social media giants ByteDance and Tencent?

  • A ByteDance subsidiary has become the third-largest shareholder of Beijing Dingtian Culture Entertainment, which runs multiple online reading platforms
  • The e-book sector is dominated by China Literature, backed by ByteDance rival Tencent Holdings

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A welcome screen for the QQ Reading application, operated by China Literature, in an arranged photograph taken in Hong Kong on October 25, 2017. Photo: Bloomberg
Coco Feng
TikTok owner ByteDance has taken a stake in a company that runs multiple online reading platforms, bringing it up against rival Tencent Holdings in yet another arena.
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Changes to Beijing Dingtian Culture Entertainment’s company registry records last week showed that a ByteDance subsidiary had taken a stake of about 10 per cent, becoming the literature-focused company’s third-largest shareholder.

Dingtian Culture runs three book-reading sites, Sweetread, Guazixs and Dmread, and also produces television dramas adapted from novels.

ByteDance did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the investment. A spokesman for Beijing Dingtian declined to disclose the size of the investment or details of its partnership with ByteDance.

The deal marks yet another step by ByteDance to move into an area dominated by Tencent, which is the largest shareholder of the country's top e-book publisher, Hong Kong-listed China Literature.

The two social media giants have been increasingly stepping into each others’ territory in recent years. ByteDance, the Beijing-based owner of the hugely popular and controversial TikTok app, signed deals with three major Chinese mobile game developers in the first half this year, ratcheting up its battle with Tencent, China’s top gaming company and the world’s largest by revenue.
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