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So over the past couple of weeks in March, Tencent, Alibaba, Xiaomi, Meituan, and BYD all dropped earnings within days of each other. I went through all of them because I have exposure to this space, and honestly, lumping these together as "China tech" completely misses how different each story actually is. Three are already out. Four are already out and BYD's annual report drops today.
Tencent was the boring one, and I mean that as a compliment. Full year revenue RMB 751.8 billion, up 14%. Non IFRS net profit up 17%. Gross margin expanded to 56%. They bought back roughly HKD 80 billion in shares, retiring 3% to 4% of the float annually, which pushed EPS growth to 18% to 19%. The AI stuff is progressing (Hunyuan model, Yuanbao app) but Tencent right now is basically a compounding machine: steady growth, margin expansion, and capital return. Before the print, 47 out of 52 analysts had buy ratings with a mean target of HK$739. Nothing to lose sleep over.
Alibaba was the trainwreck, at least optically. Q3 FY2026 revenue barely grew, up 1.7% to RMB 284.8 billion, missing estimates. Adjusted net profit collapsed 67% because the company is simultaneously fighting a subsidy war in quick commerce and spending aggressively on AI infrastructure. But here is the thing that caught my attention: cloud revenue jumped 36% to RMB 43.3 billion, the fastest clip in recent quarters, with AI product revenue still growing triple digits. CEO Eddie Wu announced a new unit called Alibaba Token Hub to consolidate all AI capabilities under him directly, and set a target of $100 billion in annual AI plus cloud revenue within five years. The three year capex plan is RMB 380 billion (\~$52B) and Wu previously said that number "might be on the small side." Stock dropped 7% the next day. The market wants profitability, not promises, and that tension is basically the entire Alibaba thesis right now.
Xiaomi is the one that keeps surprising me. Q4 revenue was solid at RMB 116.9 billion, but the EV numbers are genuinely wild. They delivered 145,115 cars in Q4 alone, more than doubling YoY, and roughly 411,000 for the full year. The EV division posted its first annual operating profit: RMB 900 million. This company literally was not building cars two years ago. The SU7 was the best selling sedan above RMB 200,000 in China last year, and the refreshed 2026 model they launched March 19 pulled 15,000 non refundable locked orders in 34 minutes. During the earlier presale window starting January 7, it racked up around 100,000 pre orders in 15 days. Their 2026 target is 550,000 deliveries. Say what you want about Chinese EVs, but this kind of ramp is basically unheard of in the auto industry.
Meituan was the ugly one. The numbers came in roughly where the February profit warning guided: full year 2025 net loss of RMB 23.4 billion, versus a net profit of RMB 35.8 billion the year before. That is a nearly RMB 60 billion swing in one year. Q4 revenue was RMB 92.1 billion, up just 4.1% YoY, with core local commerce actually declining 1.1%. The Q4 net loss alone was RMB 15.1 billion. What happened? A vicious food delivery price war with Alibaba's Taobao Flash Buy and JD both piling in with subsidies and zero commission offers. The one bright spot was the overseas business: Keeta hit positive unit economics in Hong Kong during Q4 and expanded into Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, and Brazil. Goldman noted Meituan's unit economics still lead domestically (about RMB 2.6 loss per order vs. RMB 5.2 for Alibaba's operation), so the bull case is they can outlast the competition. But that is a painful bet to sit through.
BYD's full year 2025 annual report drops today and the top line sales are already public: 4,602,436 NEVs in 2025, up about 8%. The real number is overseas: over 1,046,000 exports, up 150%, crossing one million for the first time. Their BEV sales of 2,256,714 units officially passed Tesla's 1,636,129 for the year. In February 2026, international sales actually exceeded domestic for the first time ever. The 2026 overseas target is 1.3 million. What I will be watching in today's filing is margins, because the domestic market is a bloodbath on pricing and the whole bull case hinges on whether the international business can carry profitability.
Looking at all five together, these are really five completely different investment theses wearing the same "China tech" label. Tencent is a compounder. Alibaba is an AI capex cycle bet. Xiaomi is a consumer electronics company turning into an automaker at startup speed. Meituan is a dominant platform under siege. BYD is going global. They do not trade on the same logic at all.
One thing I noticed researching this: most US listed China tech ETFs are pretty narrowly focused on internet names. KWEB has zero A share exposure and is pure internet. CQQQ is broader but still only about 34% A shares. If your thesis on China tech is more about EVs, semiconductors, AI infrastructure, and manufacturing rather than just consumer internet, it is worth actually checking what is inside the fund. I have been looking at CNQQ, which holds around 100 names split roughly 50/50 between A shares and Hong Kong listings, weighted by R&D intensity. Not a recommendation, just flagging it because the composition is noticeably different from the usual options.