Kuaishou

Kuaishou Technology (快手, Kuàishǒu — literally "quick hand") is a Chinese internet conglomerate headquartered in the Haidian District of Beijing. The company was founded in March 2011 by Su Hua (formerly a Google and Baidu engineer) and Cheng Yixiao, originally as the GIF Kuaishou app for creating and sharing animated GIFs. In 2013 it transformed into China's first short-video platform, reaching 100 million daily users by the end of that same year. Main products include the Kuaishou platform for the Chinese market, the international Kwai app (particularly popular in Brazil and Latin America) and Snack Video for the India, Pakistan and Indonesia markets. In 2017 Tencent led a strategic round worth $350M. In February 2021 Kuaishou debuted on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (ticker 1024), with shares jumping 194% at the open — market capitalization surpassed HK$1 trillion. The company is partly state-owned: the China Internet Investment Fund holds a golden share, and Beijing Radio and Television Station has held a minority stake since October 2022. In June 2024 Kuaishou released Kling — a Diffusion Transformer text-to-video model generating up to 2 minutes of video in 1080p at 30 fps, compared to OpenAI Sora. The model is available through the KwaiCut app. Revenue for FY2024 was approximately CN¥127B (~$17.39B), with 24,718 employees. Main competitor: Douyin (TikTok). Kuaishou is a constituent of the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index and the Hang Seng China 50 Index.