With Web giants such as Facebook and Twitter blocked by the government here, an entire ecosystem of home-grown companies has flourished with names that are unfamiliar to many outside China.
Tencent, one of the country's biggest tech firms, is hoping to change that with a product that is already one of the fastest-growing mobile services in the world.
The company's instant messaging product, WeChat, has amassed more than 300 million users — nearly equivalent to the U.S. population — in less than three years. Tencent says there are over 70 million users across southeast Asia, India and Mexico, with 30 million of those added in just the past three months. WeChat has also expanded into Saudi Arabia recently, and there are plans to open a U.S. office.