China has overtaken the United States for the first time to dominate a new list of the top 52 app publishers around the globe, with 17 domestic companies earning places on the annual Top 52 Publisher list released on Tuesday by data.ai, a US-headquartered mobile analytics company.

China's top gaming and social media operator Tencent Holdings Ltd retained its top spot in data.ai's Top 52 Publishers list, followed by a Chinese leading gaming outfit NetEase remaining second in the ranking. US-headquartered gaming powerhouse Activision Blizzard moved up one position to No 3.

Chinese app publishers such as ByteDance, miHoYo, Lilith, FunPlus, Alibaba Group and Baidu also made an appearance on the list.

Publishers headquartered in the Asia-Pacific dominated the list and make up more than 60 percent of the Top 52.

Jeffery Zheng, data.ai's director of the Greater China region, highlighted the considerable progress made by Chinese app publishers during the past year, saying China has become the world's most developed mobile market and Chinese mobile publishers will continue to lead the globe in the future.

Data.ai also released another three lists of the top 30 fast-growing Chinese game publishers, top 30 Chinese game publishers and top 30 non-game Chinese publishers in the overseas markets. It claimed that while gaming companies have made great strides overseas, various non-game Chinese companies are also seeking to expand their presence around the globe.

ByteDance has gained the top spot on the top 30 non-game Chinese publishers by revenues in the overseas market, followed by JOYY and Tencent.

The company said the list is composed of the Top 52 mobile publishers by combined iOS and Google Play revenue estimates in 2021. Rankings do not include revenue earned from in-app advertising, commerce, or payments outside of the app stores.

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