The global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) solutions are growing at a steady pace and the key solutions providers are ramping up their capabilities to meet this burgeoning demand.
It is estimated that by 2030, these technologies will add $15.7 trillion to global GDP. Being one of the leading players in the field, the Chinese economy is likely to benefit substantially from this increasing demand and the key players are already working to reap its benefits.
As Chinese companies have increased their technological capabilities, surpassing even the likes of Microsoft and Google, we take a look at the top five companies’ stocks that are likely to fetch you a good investment return.
1.Baidu (BIDU): Chinese multinational company which is a prominent internet service provider and has a range of AI-based products. It witnessed a revenues increase of 14.13% year on year in the fourth quarter, to $ 14,876.00 million. Though in 2018 it cloaked a revenue of 28.7 per cent, the Chinese internet giant is witnessing remarkable growth over the years.
Following the 2010 government blanket ban on internet service providers such as Google and Facebook, Baidu stepped in to fill the void and presently tops the market share with 54 per cent. The company is also known to heavily rely on algorithms and analytics to customise the search engine queries and replies.
Baidu voice and mobile assistant, text-speech system, AI-based transcription tools are some of its key AI offerings.
2.Alibaba (BABA): Is a leading Chinese e-commerce company that entered the AI-market with TmallGenie, its intelligent voice assistant. AliGenie, an intelligent human-machine interaction interface and its mobile robots which work on sensoring, interaction and understanding and autonomous planning and task completion capabilities are its AI-focused products.
Over the last couple of years, Alibaba has been giving stiff competition to Google’s Alphabet inc, with investors closely monitoring their market activities with keen interest.
For the last quarter, though Alibaba’s growth in home currency rate stood at 51 per cent, due to the devaluation of Chinese yuan, its valuation in USD was comparatively lesser.
“Last year, Alibaba bought Ele.me, local services and food delivery business, which contributed 5% to revenue. The company bought streaming service Youku Tudou in 2016 for $5.4 billion, moving Alibaba headlong into the streaming media segment. Still, Alibaba’s core business remains very healthy, growing at a 45% rate in local currency last quarter,” a leading web portal noted.
3.Tencent Holdings (TME): Founded in 1998, Tencent is a Chinese multinational investment holding conglomerate and specialises in various internet-related services and products, entertainment, artificial intelligence and technology both in China and internationally.
Announcing its latest first quarter results, the company said that its revenue stood at $12,693 million and that it cloaked an increase of 16% over the first quarter of 2018 and attributed to success to its game business with games like Perfect World Mobile in China, while PubG Mobile grew its user-base steadily.
“We are consequently disclosing their results in our new FinTech and Business Services segment, demonstrating our success in organically incubating services with long-term growth potential. We believe that we are building solid foundations for future growth in both the Consumer and Industrial Internet domains,” Ma Huateng, Chairman and CEO of Tencent said.
4.JD.com: JD.com is China’s largest online retailer and its biggest overall retailer, as well as the country’s biggest Internet company by revenue. It is often referred to as the Amazon of China, the e-commerce giant is known to use AI, robotics and automation to stand out in the stiff Chinese e-commerce market.
The net revenue of the company for the first quarter stood at $118.0 billion, earning the company a 20.9% increase from the first quarter of 2018. While its net service revenue was $1.9 billion, where it witnessed an increase of 44.0% from the first quarter of 2018.
Commenting on its performance, Richard Liu, Chairman and CEO of JD.com said that the growth was possible due to the companies increasingly focused on driving innovation using cutting edge-technologies like AL and ML.
5.iFlytek: Is a Chinese information technology company established in 1999 and provides voice recognition software and internet and mobile products across various sectors. Though its revenue witnessed a slump in the previous year, it’s spending on research and development increased substantially thus witnessing a 40 per cent year on year growth in the first quarter of 2019.
