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Competition is heating up between China's biggest Internet companies, including e-commerce leader Alibaba and search giant, Baidu. Mobile Internet is the new battle ground and with half a billion Chinese now using mobile devices to get online, the stakes couldn’t be higher. China’s biggest mobile Internet event of the year, the Global Mobile Internet Conference, kicked off on Monday in Beijing. 

In China’s Internet landscape, mobility¹ is everything.

"Nokia and Motorola are dying, because this is the mobile Internet age. It is destructive, but it also has huge potential." Wu Hequan, president of Internet Society Of China, said. 

According to the China Internet Network Information Center, China ended 2013 with 618 million Internet users. Among them, 500 million logged on via mobile. That’s more than 80 percent.

There are many reasons why mobile Internet is so popular in China. For one as a developing country, many consumers can afford to buy a phone before a computer. There’s also the increasing expectation of consumers globally to always have Internet, wherever they go.”

The impact of China’s mobile Internet revolution is vast terms of instant messaging, online videos and online payments. 86 percent of all Chinese Internet users now use apps like WeChat. While 70 percent watch videos on tablets and phones/ And 42 percent use mobile devices to make payments.

Now, competition and rivalry² between China’s biggest Internet giants is hotting up. 

Last week, Beijing-based mobile browser³, UCweb announced a new joint⁴ venture with China’s biggest e-commerce company, Alibaba. The new company will be called "Shenma", [which means "What" in English] and will focus exclusively on mobile Internet. It’s being seen as a direct attack on China’s biggest search company, Baidu.

"We will focus on mobile messaging, search and browsing⁵. Whereas Baidu focuses on PC-based searches. We now have 100 million users. By the end of 2014, we hope to have 200 million." Yu Yongfu, CEO of UCWEB, said. 

Telecoms companies are feeling the heat too. The world’s biggest carrier, China Mobile has announced plans to collaborate⁶ with China Unicom and China Telecom on mobile games.

In China’s cut-throat communications market, few things are certain. But with half a billion Chinese still offline, there’s an enormous market to tap into. And mobile internet providers are poised⁷ to move in.