ByteDance surpassed Ant Group in valuation and became what the Hurun Research Institute described as the world's largest unicorn company last month.
The parent of Tik Tok and Douyin, ByteDance's valuation grew by 1.73 trillion yuan (HK$2.11 trillion) to 2.25 trillion yuan compared to 1 trillion yuan for Ant Group, which is under Alibaba (9988).
This came a year after Ant Group's US$37 billion (HK$287.8 billion) initial public offering was called off by regulators two days before its scheduled dual-listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai, leaving investors guessing about return prospects and causing its valuation to slump.
The Hurun Report, which includes all private enterprises established after 2000 that are valued at US$1 billion or more, showed that 1,058 unicorns emerged around the world in 2021 - more than twice as many as last year.
Although there are no metaverse-related unicorns so far, the game-changing technology is expected to give birth to many unicorn companies, said Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of the Hurun Report.
The unique feature of China's entrepreneurial ecosystem is the ability of large technology companies to incubate unicorns, Hoogewerf added, with 49 of 50 unicorns coming from China.
Among the Chinese giants, Alibaba has incubated five unicorns - the most - while JD.com (9618) and Baidu (9888) each produced three.
In contrast, US giants including Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Alphabet did not incubate any unicorns.
But billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX saw its valuation jump by the equivalent of 400 billion yuan to 640 billion yuan, making it the world's third-largest unicorn.
On another front, the mainland's internet regulator has been asked by the Cyberspace Administration of China to summon the online question-and-answer platform Zhihu over the alleged unlawful release of information.
