40 global technology companies beating their Western rivals - Rest of World
▻https://restofworld.org/2023/rest-vs-west
What is the world’s biggest digital bank? No, not HSBC — it’s Brazil’s Nubank, which reported close to $5 billion in revenue last year.
What is the most widely used social media platform in Vietnam? Not Facebook or TikTok — it’s Zalo, with an impressive 87% adoption rate.
And what was one of the earliest online food delivery platforms? That would be Talabat, launched by a group of Kuwaiti students in Cairo, in 2004. That’s three years before the iPhone came to market.
If these names surprise you, they shouldn’t. Startup ecosystems outside the West have been churning out billion-dollar tech companies and radically innovative products for years. But their achievements are rarely celebrated or known here in the U.S. Today, not only are entrepreneurs in Buenos Aires, Lagos, and Jakarta building businesses that create huge economic opportunity and value, they’re also competing directly with Silicon Valley for users and growth in these markets. And they’re winning.
Our 2023 annual list is devoted to 40 trailblazing companies that, in their own ways, beat the West. Some of them won by market combat: Years of bruising competition led to lucrative acquisitions by their Western rivals, or acquisitions of the Westerner’s local assets. A few just dominate their sector outright.
Others beat the West by paying attention. They saw what foreign entrants missed, and tailored their products and platforms to local user needs with surgical precision. Or they proved a certain model could work in developing economies written off by outsiders.
By seeing and seizing opportunity — and not waiting for Silicon Valley to meet local needs — these 40 companies lead the pack. They’ve already inspired a generation of new startups, founders, engineers, and problem-solvers across emerging markets, whose inventions will come to define the future of everyone’s technology experience. TikTok may have been the first international tech platform to spark a major crisis around American competitiveness, but it won’t be the last.
— Anup Kaphle (Editor-in-Chief)
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