Private sector enterprises comprised 40 per cent of the top 100 listed Chinese companies by market value in the second half of last year, led by high-profile technology firms involved in China’s artificial intelligence (AI) boom, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
That represented an increase of 2.4 percentage points from the first half of last year, the Washington-based think tank said in a report released on Tuesday that also highlighted a marked rebound from a low of 33.5 per cent in the first half of 2024.
The data confirms the “three-year relative decline of the private sector’s share between mid-2021 and mid-2024 did not mark a permanent reversal of its spectacular rise over the previous decade”, it said in the report, which includes companies listed in China or overseas and is compiled twice a year.
The private sector’s share peaked at 55.4 per cent in mid-2021, it added.
In the first half of last year, established technology giants such as Tencent, Alibaba, Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), Xiaomi and BYD were joined in the top 100 ranking by a growing number of consumer brands – including Pop Mart, Mixue Bingcheng and Laopu Gold. Alibaba is the owner of the South China Morning Post.
Several new hi-tech manufacturers from the private sector joined the list in the second half of 2025, including optical transceiver maker Eoptolink Technology, graphics processing unit producer Moore Threads Technology, circuit-board maker Victory Giant Technology, and AI chipmaker MetaX Integrated Circuits.
“China’s political leaders have publicly celebrated the rise of these private-sector champions of the country’s ‘new economy’, one in which growth will be fuelled more by hi-tech manufacturing, decarbonisation and innovation, and less by housing and infrastructure development,” the report said.