China's frenzied metaverse poised to balloon into $50bn business

Regulators react to growing pains of fast-moving and overheating market

202203014N Metaverse

Chinese tech giant Baidu released XiRang in December as China's first fully-accessible metaverse. (Photo by Takashi Kawakami)

TAKASHI KAWAKAMI, Nikkei staff writer

GUANGZHUO -- China's fledgling metaverse sector is on track to grow into a market exceeding $50 billion by the middle of the decade, with signs of an overheating industry drawing the attention of regulators.

The metaverse social app called Jelly made headlines in mid-February when it replaced WeChat as the top-ranked free iOS app. WeChat, the social media platform that boasts over 1.2 billion users, had held the crown since 2019.

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