Citi has released its outlook report for Asia-Pacific tech stocks this year. China's internet sector delivered an outstanding performance in 2025. Its growth of 31% outran the world's major markets, including their peers in the US at 20%, South Korea at 14%, Southeast Asia at 11%, Japan at 10%, and India at 9%.

Looking ahead to 2026, the AI theme in China is likely to become the core focus of the internet industry, with market expectations revolving around three major directions: the continuous revenue growth driven by cloud infrastructure and inference token usage; the battle for traffic entry points among AI chatbots, given that major internet companies are ramping up their efforts to capture traffic gateways in the AI era for future ecosystem monetization; and defending their leading position and enhancing user stickiness and monetization potential through proprietary data AI agents trained independently among vertical players.

In terms of investment strategies, Citi favors TENCENT (00700.HK) and BABA-W (09988.HK) as core AI beneficiary stocks. Trip.com (TCOM.US) and NetEase (NTES.US) have demonstrated their resilience with robust profitability. J&T EXPRESS-W (01519.HK) also has growth potential in cross-border business.