(20 July 2023, Guangzhou city Nansha district) The Hurun Research Institute today released the Hurun China Metaverse Companies with the Greatest Potential 2023, a ranking of 200 Chinese companies with the greatest potential in the metaverse. The report includes a list of Hurun China Metaverse Future Stars 2023. This is the second year of the list.

The list refers to companies based in the Chinese Mainland, HK, Macao and Taiwan. For the main list, Hurun Research only considered companies with a value of US$1bn or more. For the Hurun China Metaverse Future Stars, this included companies with a value of less than US$1bn.

Today, Hurun Report is hosting the second Hurun China Metaverse Conference & the Hurun China Metaverse Companies with the Greatest Potential 2023 press release in Nansha District of Guangzhou.

Nansha District is the sixth state-level new areas in China, the largest area of China (Guangdong) Pilot Free Trade Zone, and the demonstration zone of all-round cooperation among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao. It has become one of the regions with the highest degree of openness and the greatest development potential in China. On 14 June 2022, the State Council issued the Nansha roadmap entitled ‘Overall Plan for Guangzhou Nansha to Deepen Comprehensive Cooperation among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao for the World’, which stated that Nansha District should accelerate the deepening of the global comprehensive cooperation between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, build a major Grand strategy platform based on the GBA, cooperating with Hong Kong and Macao, and facing the world, and better play a leading role in the construction of the GBA.

Nansha District has one of China’s most dynamic strategies, integrating innovation, industry, capital, and policy. Nansha is focusing on promoting the infrastructure construction of scientific and technological innovation platforms, accelerating the gathering of various innovative elements such as scientific and technological industry talents, and showing a vigorous development momentum in scientific and technological innovation. Continuously leverage the window demonstration effect and link global technological innovation resources. The 2023 Great Bay Area Science Forum was successfully held, with hundreds of top scientists, academicians, experts and representatives of international organizations from all over the world attending, and more than 3000 people. Continuously enrich the "1+1+3+N" science and technology innovation platform system to serve national strategic needs. Nansha Science City has been included in the main bearing area of the comprehensive national science center in the GBA. The national major scientific installations and the National Engineering Research Center have achieved a breakthrough of "0". The construction of the Mingzhu Science Park of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the cold-seep ecosystem has been accelerated. Continuously improving the innovative industrial system and consolidating the "driving force" for the development of the technology industry. The first "four chain" integration policy system of State-level New Area was released, and over CNY20bn will be invested in the next five years to support enterprises and talents' innovation and entrepreneurship in a hierarchical and full cycle manner. Strategic emerging industries such as high-end manufacturing, aerospace, marine technology, life and health, integrated circuits, and AI are thriving, with 902 high-tech enterprises gathered. In particular, the digital economy has a strong momentum of development, and a perfect digital ecology has been built. Qingsheng AI Value Innovation Park has been identified as one of the first five provincial artificial intelligence industrial parks, gathering more than 800 AI and life healthcare enterprises, and cultivating Unicorn enterprises such as CloudWalk, Pony.ai, and DMAI. CloudWalk Technology has become the "first share of AI platform" on the STAR Market, laying a solid foundation for the development of Metaverse industry.

Nansha District has become a hot spot for innovation and entrepreneurship. The frontier field of the metaverse is the next important development direction of the Internet, which will profoundly change future production and lifestyle, and promote future industrial development. The establishment of Guangzhou Metaverse Innovation Alliance in Nansha last year fired Guangzhou's “first shot” in the “Metaverse Circuit”, injecting new vitality into Guangzhou’s accelerated construction of a global digital economy benchmark city and an international consumption center city. Today’s release of the Hurun China Metaverse Companies with the Greatest Potential 2023, Nansha District's CloudWalk Technology, Aofei Data, Pony.AI were selected as the main list, and Deepmirror, Coeus, SequoiaDB, Time Network, Syncore Autotech.ec were selected as the Future Star Enterprises, which will attract more multi-universe enterprises to gather and develop in the future.

Hurun Report Chairman and Chief Researcher Rupert Hoogewerf said: “I am delighted to launch in Nansha District – for the second year running – the Hurun China Metaverse Companies with the Greatest Potential. Nansha has one of the most dynamic environments for setting up innovative businesses, and has many special policies to promote companies in the metaverse.”

“Why do we care so much about the metaverse? It is a potential new continent for humanity as big as when Columbus discovered the Americas back in 1492. There are two directions, the physical world to other planets and the digital world to the metaverse. Technology companies led by SpaceX have taken the lead in the field of space exploration, while the exploration of metaverse enterprises led by Meta and Apple is also ongoing. Eventually, in a metaverse world, people are likely to live holographically as other digital identities.”

“Another hot topic in the past year is the application of large language models, which are expected to have a huge impact on the development of the metaverse. For example, virtual salespeople will interact with consumers in real time in the metaverse mall, intelligently understanding consumer needs and improving sales conversion. Virtual NPCs interact with players in real time in the metaverse, adjusting the game difficulty and interaction mechanics to enhance the game experience.”

“New industries are being spawned as the metaverse takes shape. Memory applications are on the up on last year, as the metaverse needs more optimized storage space and faster reading speed. Another is Web3 and the future development of network technology.”

“57 new companies made the Hurun list for the first time this year, showing increased metaverse-related initiatives combining AI, blockchain, Internet of Things, 3D Reconstruction/Modeling, Internet Infrastructure and Mobile Technology.”

This is a brief English summary of the full Chinese press release which can be found at www.hurun.net. For media enquiries please contact our public relations team whose contact details can be found at the end of this report. 

Metaverse Industry Distribution

Geographical Distribution

Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen accounted for nearly 50% of the total; Beijing still has the most companies, with 45; Shanghai followed with 33; Shenzhen ranked third with 21; Guangzhou up one place to fourth with 15; Hangzhou ranked fifth with 13. The GBA has 50, accounting for 25%.

Guangzhou surpassed Hangzhou to rank fourth; In terms of provinces, Guangdong overtook Beijing topped the list.

Industry Distribution

New to the list

Listed or Not

170 are listed companies, such as Tencent and Alibaba. 30 are unlisted companies, represented by Huawei and Bytedance.

How many State-Owned Companies?

37 are state-owned enterprises, represented by the likes of China Mobile and Mango Excellent Media, whilst the rest are non-state-owned companies, such as Xiaomi and NetEase.

Years since Establishment

The average age of the companies on the list is 21 years, with the youngest being two-year-old ZX Inc. and the oldest 55-year-old Midea Group. The oldest companies are all in consumer electronics.

Future Stars

For companies with a value of less than US$1bn, Hurun Research found several companies that have already made a considerable impact or investment in the metaverse, the Hurun Metaverse Future Stars. These enterprises include: Zhuosheng Technology, SequoiaDB, deepmirror, Time Network, Syncore Autotech, BSPH, Milian Tech, Mindverse, KMAX, 51World, Rokid, 7Invensun, Mrstage, META48, Dexforce, Realibox, Xianghang, Camsense, Lumverse, 4u, Nreal, vvstar, UINO, COEUS, e-chain, EZXR, Xinhuazhiyun, daschow, Gsdata, Jimuyida.

Methodology

The Hurun China Metaverse Companies with the Greatest Potential 2023 is a list of the Top 200 Chinese companies with the most potential in the metaverse.

The survey scope of this list covers companies set up in China with a value of over US$1bn. The information sources are public information of enterprises and industries.

Firstly, the research team read various white papers and reports, such as Beijing Information Industry Association ‘China Metaverse White Paper’, Tsinghua University ‘Metaverse Development Research Report’, etc., to understand the related industries of the metaverse.

Then we began to narrow down those companies from the metaverse-related industries. The sectors of these companies included but are not limited to chips, display technologies, sensors, holographic technologies, games, digital currencies, virtual digital people, live broadcasts, online education, film and television media, Internet of Things, machine vision, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, digital twin, virtual reality, augmented reality, smart wear, brain-computer interface, etc.

The next step was to determine the current activities and implementations of each company in the Metaverse field, the relationship between their main and secondary businesses with the core industries of the Metaverse. The final product was a list of the Top 200 companies with greatest potential in the metaverse.

Hurun China Metaverse Companies with the Greatest Potential 2023

Located at the geographical center of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Nansha New Area of Guangzhou is 38 nautical miles away from Hong Kong and 41 nautical miles away from Macao. A half-hour transportation circle with Nansha as its core is taking shape. Covering an area of 803 square kilometers, Nansha has a population of over 1.2 million.

Nansha enjoys multiple strategic designations: it is the only state-level new area in Guangdong province, the largest area of Guangdong Pilot Free Trade Zone, the Demonstration Zone for Comprehensive Cooperation among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao. In June 2022, the State Council issued the Overall Plan for Promoting Comprehensive Cooperation among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao by Further Deepening Opening-up in Nansha District of Guangzhou, which envisioned Nansha as a major strategic platform with global perspective that is based on the Greater Bay Area and in collaboration with Hong Kong and Macao. Nansha has scored notable achievements in cooperation with Hong Kong and Macao. In recent years, major projects have been implemented here, including the Consultative Committee on Guangdong-Hong Kong Cooperation (Guangzhou Nansha), the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), the Hong Kong-style International Community and the Nansha Incubation Base of Hong Kong Science Park. Nansha boasts the largest container hub port in South China, and the largest international cruise home port in China. Railways from Nansha port are accessible to Europe, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia. With the new position of National Demonstration Zone for Creative Promotion of Import Trade, Nansha has outstood in pursuing a more robust development by fully leveraging domestic and international markets. As a main support area for comprehensive national science center of the Greater Bay Area, Nansha is building a batch of scientific and technological innovation platforms such as Nansha Science City, cold-seep scientific facilities, International Special Zone for Talents, and the permanent site of the Greater Bay Area Science Forum. It is also home to an over 200-billion-yuan automotive cluster. The development of the strategic emerging industries in Nansha including artificial intelligence, life science, marine science, aerospace, and aviation is in full swing. Financial platforms such as the Guangzhou Futures Exchange and Guangzhou Data Exchange are being constructed in Nansha. More than 240 projects invested by Global Fortune 500 companies have been introduced here.

Nansha’s charm of Lingnan culture, water town culture, and ocean culture are unique and lingering. Nansha boasts distinctive attractions: the “Nansha Man” Relics, dated back to 4,000 years ago and known as the earliest one found in Guangzhou; Humen Fort Former Site; Former Residence of the People’s Musician Xian Xinghai. Besides, Nansha’s kylin dance, salt-water songs, and gambiered canton gauze have been included as intangible cultural heritages. Nansha enjoys an outstanding ecological environment, featuring a perfect integration of mountains, farmlands, rivers, sea, towns. With hundreds of hectares of wetlands, it is also crowned as a most livable community by the United Nations, a national law-based government demonstration district, and one of the happiest cities (district-level) in China.

Established in the UK in 1999, Hurun is a research, media and investments group, promoting entrepreneurship through its lists and research. Widely regarded as an opinion-leader in the world of business, Hurun generated 6 billion views on the Hurun brand last year, mainly in China and India.

Best-known today for the Hurun Rich List series, telling the stories of the world’s successful entrepreneurs in China, India and the world, Hurun’s two other key series include the Hurun Start-up series and the Hurun 500 series, a ranking of the world’s most valuable companies.

The Hurun Start-up series begins with the Hurun U30s, an awards recognizing the most successful entrepreneurs under the age of thirty, and is today in seven countries. Next up are Hurun Cheetahs, Chinese and Indian start-ups with a valuation of between US$300mn to US$500mn, most likely to go unicorn with five years. Hurun Global Gazelles recognize start-ups with a valuation of US$500mn to US$1bn, most likely to go unicorn within three years. The culmination of the start-up series is the Hurun Global Unicorn Index.

Other lists include the Hurun Philanthropy List, ranking the biggest philanthropists, the Hurun Art List, ranking the world’s most successful artists alive today, etc…

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