Tencent's "counterpunch": Instead of launching a standalone app, WeChat quietly strikes back against ByteDance

In the narratives about China's internet over the past two years, the general public and the capital market seem to have reached a consensus: in the battle for short videos and user attention, Tencent has been retreating steadily, while ByteDance has climbed to a new throne with Douyin and Hongguo.

But the charm of the business world lies precisely in its complexity and multi-faceted nature. When everyone is focusing on the daily active users and screen usage duration of standalone apps, Tencent has completed an extremely sharp "sudden counterattack" in a completely different way.

A set of latest data disclosed recently has opened up another dimension of this game between industry giants.

In the first week of October, "Green Bubble Short Dramas", which Tencent operates quietly within the WeChat ecosystem, recorded around 89.68 million weekly active users (WAU), up 44.1% compared with the first week of September. In contrast, ByteDance spent a full three years building its standalone app "Hongguo". Without launching any new independent application or carrying out billions-level user acquisition investment for standalone apps, Tencent has gathered this amazing traffic in only about three months, relying solely on WeChat Mini Programs.

At the same time, in the office sector, Tencent's AI office assistant WorkBuddy recorded 32.353 million monthly active users in the third quarter, ranking first in the typical office Agent category, with a 647.1% month-on-month increase.

This set of data is not just a counterattack at the product level; it further profoundly reveals an underlying logic that has been seriously underestimated by the market: in the second half of the AI and content era, relying solely on users' screen usage duration can no longer determine the final business winner. A huge and mature ecosystem can monetize users' "blank time" with extremely terrifying efficiency.

Misaligned Battlefield: Building New Ships vs. Refitting an Aircraft Carrier

To understand this counterattack, one must first understand the completely different strategic paths taken by Tencent and ByteDance.

ByteDance's playing style is a typical "building new ships" approach. From Toutiao to Douyin, then to Hongguo Short Dramas and Doubao, ByteDance is used to building one super standalone app after another. This strategy relies heavily on algorithms, extremely high traffic procurement costs, and strong ground promotion. The success of Hongguo Short Dramas is backed by ByteDance's almost cost-ignorant user acquisition investment and massive content supply. This is an "outward expansion" heavy infantry tactic.

Tencent's playing style, on the other hand, is "refitting an aircraft carrier". WeChat is that super aircraft carrier with over 1.3 billion monthly active users. Faced with Hongguo's rapid surge in the short drama market, Tencent did not choose to build another destroyer (launch a new standalone short drama app to compete with Hongguo), but directly "embedded" short dramas onto the deck of the aircraft carrier — WeChat Mini Programs.

The explosive growth of "Green Bubble Short Dramas" perfectly interprets the power of this ecosystem monetization model.

First of all, it has no download threshold for standalone apps: users can click and watch directly within WeChat, with an extremely smooth experience;

Secondly, it fully leverages WeChat's social distribution and private domain precipitation. Users share short dramas to groups or Moments, and fission based on acquaintance relationship chains brings the incremental customer acquisition cost far below the level of standalone app user acquisition. Of course, Green Bubble is not completely zero-investment in promotion: there were still about 43,000 sets of material placements in the first week of October, but the magnitude is nowhere near the billions-level user acquisition investment of standalone apps;

Finally, it has directly realized a closed loop. Everything from watching, jumping to unlocking episodes via WeChat Pay is completed within one single app.

For the short drama market that ByteDance spent three years and huge sums of money to nurture, Tencent achieved rapid growth within the WeChat ecosystem in three months with an investment far lower than the user acquisition cost of standalone apps. This is not plagiarism at the product level, but a dimensionality reduction strike at the ecosystem level. Of course, Hongguo currently has 368 million monthly active users and 168 million daily active users, whose scale is still much higher than Green Bubble's 89.68 million weekly active users. It is too early to talk about "harvesting"; but the incremental efficiency of WeChat is enough to alert any competitor.

The Truth of Profit Margin: The Underestimated "Rent Collector"

The cruelest side revealed by the data is reflected in the financial books.

After the frenzied investment in large AI models, the market is generally worried that the profits of giants will be eroded by high computing power costs. However, according to the latest financial report, after excluding the impact of the revenue, cost and expenses of new AI products (Hunyuan, Yuanbao, CodeBuddy, WorkBuddy, Xiaowei), Tencent's Non-IFRS operating profit margin in the second quarter was 42%, 3 percentage points higher than the 39% in the same period of last year. This does not mean that AI infrastructure does not cost money, but that after stripping out the new AI products that are still in the investment period, the profit margin of its core business has become even higher.

This is an extremely staggering figure.

In comparison, ByteDance's revenue in the first half of 2026 is about 120 billion US dollars, whose scale is close to Meta, but its net profit margin has dropped to 16.7% due to the crazy expansion of data centers, GPU procurement and AI infrastructure investment. Its market transaction valuation is reported to reach about 600 billion US dollars, and Zhang Yiming has topped the rich list with a net worth of 670 billion yuan, but that is built with extremely huge capital expenditure (CapEx) and a matrix of standalone apps.

Tencent's WeChat ecosystem, on the other hand, demonstrates extremely terrifying "rent collection" capabilities. In the "Green Bubble Short Dramas" model, Tencent does not need to bear the sunk cost of drama production. It only needs to provide the soil and payment channels, and then draw a share from the circulating advertising and paid content. Without spending huge sums to promote standalone apps, there is naturally no heavy user acquisition burden that comes with standalone apps.

This is exactly the cruel truth behind that set of data: ByteDance is building its empire at an extremely high cost, while Tencent is defending its territory in incremental businesses like short dramas with marginal customer acquisition costs far lower than that of standalone apps. When short dramas and AI office assistants are embedded into the WeChat ecosystem, the profit margin of Tencent's core business has become even thicker. Of course, Tencent's overall AI capital expenditure is not low — its capital expenditure in Q2 2026 was 52.78 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 176%, and the full-year figure is expected to exceed 200 billion yuan. The difference is that its investment is more precipitated into the ecosystem base, rather than being used as user acquisition expenses for a single app.

The Hidden Battle of Office AI: The Surprise Attack of WorkBuddy

The same logic is also playing out in the AI office track.

Over the past year, ByteDance's Doubao has become the AI application with the highest daily active users in China by virtue of extremely aggressive traffic placement and C-end mindshare occupation. However, Tencent did not fight to the death with Doubao on C-end chatbots, but very smartly chose the entry point of "WorkBuddy".

WorkBuddy recorded 32.353 million monthly active users in the third quarter, ranking first in the typical office Agent category, with a 647.1% month-on-month increase. Its core support comes from WeCom, Tencent Docs and the workflow of the WeChat ecosystem: users can call it when communicating work on WeCom and processing files in Tencent Docs, and it also has independent multi-terminal entrances. Compared with standalone AI apps, WorkBuddy is closer to a service embedded in the real workflow.

This "non-intrusive" AI reduces users' learning costs and completes penetration directly in the real workflow. ByteDance's Doubao is trying to create a brand new entrance, while Tencent chooses to embed AI into workflow infrastructures such as WeCom and Tencent Docs.

The Collision of Two Business Philosophies

This game around user duration, AI and short dramas is essentially a collision of two different business philosophies.

ByteDance is the "terminator of traffic". It uses extremely powerful algorithms to snatch users away from other apps and lock them in its own duration pool. It must constantly create new content forms (short videos, short dramas, AI) to fill users' emptiness. This is a mode that keeps expanding outward and is full of aggressiveness.

Tencent is the "landlord of connections". It no longer insists on forcing users to stay in WeChat to watch long videos or scroll through short dramas. It allows users to use other applications, but it ensures that when users need to share, make payments, socialize, and handle office collaboration, they must return to WeChat. Through Mini Programs and underlying services, it makes all other ecosystems (including a lot of ByteDance's content) work for it invisibly.

Under this logic, the criteria for judging who wins and who loses have become extremely complicated.

If measured by user usage duration, daily active users of standalone apps, monthly active users of AI chat, founder's wealth, and company valuation, ByteDance undoubtedly wins this round. It represents the ultimate expansion and growth in the mobile internet era.

But if measured by operating profit margin, ecosystem monetization efficiency, risk resistance capability, and the ability to "make money by using users' blank time", Tencent shows the extremely profound heritage of an established empire. It proves that the counterattack of a super giant often does not require building an identical weapon again, but uses the potential energy of the ecosystem to directly turn new things into part of itself.

Conclusion

Just like the classic evaluation in the industry: screen usage duration cannot determine the final winner, especially when the ecosystem can use users' blank time for monetization more efficiently.

ByteDance, with its top-tier talents and algorithms, has forcibly built an empire with a valuation of about 600 billion US dollars, which is a wealth creation miracle belonging to this era. Tencent, on the other hand, has proven with its extremely cold ecosystem logic that in the deep water zone of the internet, owning "infrastructure" and "connection rights" still allows it to steadily take the most lucrative piece of cake at the poker table.

This is a marathon with no end point. ByteDance is working hard to create waves, while Tencent is quietly building embankments. For China's technology industry, having two such enterprises that achieve the ultimate in different dimensions may be more valuable than arguing over "whose time it is". Because whether it is the wave or the embankment, both are pushing the boundary of China's technology business to evolve deeper.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Tech Business", author: Tech Business, published with authorization from 36Kr.