(Yicai Global) Nov. 4 -- Almost one-fourth of China's top internet companies by competitiveness are game developers, according to a recent ranking.

Twenty-four game developers made this year's list of the top 100 internet companies in China published by the Internet Society of China. The number would rise to 26 if counting also Alibaba Group Holding and TikTok's operator Douyin Group, which have affiliated game businesses.

Tencent Holdings, Alibaba, Beijing Sankuai Technology, which owns the brand and trademark of lifestyle service giant Meituan, Ant Group, Douyin, JD.Com, Baidu, Shanghai Xunmeng Information Technology, operator of e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, short-video platform Kuaishou, and online travel agency Trip.Com Group ranked first to 10th, respectively.

The top-ranked game developers after Tencent were Bilibili, miHoYo, NetEase, and Sohu, which ranked 11th, 13th, 15th, and 24th, respectively.

Shanghai-based miHoYo, which owns hot-selling game Genshin Impact, climbed the ranking this year from 23rd last year and 53rd in 2020, surpassing time-honored NetEase and Sohu.

Genshin Impact is one of the most successful mobile games, remaining one of the most popular in overseas markets in recent years. It earned USD2 billion in the year following its release on app stores in September 2020, data from Sensor Tower showed. As of May, Genshin Impact cumulatively gained USD3 billion worth of revenues on Apple's App Store and Android's Google Play, according to Sensor Tower.

MiHoYo's Chief Executive Cai Haoyu made the Fortune China 500 list including the richest people in the country for the first time this year. He ranked 73rd with a wealth of CNY55.4 billion (USD7.6 billion).

The ISC has been drawing the list of China's top internet companies for 10 consecutive years. The firms are ranked according to their comprehensive scores calculated based on 11 indicators relevant to corporate operation, the sector's development tendencies, and experts' opinions.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione