China accounted for 10% of Meta’s sales in 2023 as Chinese brands seek global exposure

US-based social network giant Meta Platforms has seen its China-related revenue grow steadily due to strong traction from mainland-based advertisers, as Chinese brands vie for consumers in foreign markets.

In 2023, China accounted for 10 per cent of Meta’s total revenue of US$134.9 billion, up from 6 per cent in the previous two years, according to Meta’s financial results published on Friday.

“The online commerce and gaming verticals benefited from strong demand by advertisers in China reaching people in other markets,” said Susan Li, Meta’s chief financial officer, during an earnings call with analysts. She added that China sales contributed 5 percentage points to its total revenue growth last year.

The country also accounted for a larger proportion of Meta’s revenue in the Asia-Pacific region last year, at 38 per cent, up from 27 per cent in 2022.

Although the Chinese government blocks its population of 1.4 billion from many global social media apps such as X, Google’s YouTube and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, that did not stop China from being a top advertiser on these platforms, where state-related actors also tapped into their global reach.

X, formerly Twitter, saw China become its fastest-growing overseas ad market and one of its largest non-US revenue sources due to a splurge of global influence activities by Chinese authorities, according to a Reuters’ report in 2022.

China was Meta’s biggest advertising market in Asia in 2017, as Beijing used the US-based platform to spread state-produced propaganda around the world, according to a New York Times’ report that year.