Tencent Cloud tops China retail cloud solution market with 23.4% share: IDC

The report valued China's retail cloud market at 13.5 billion yuan in 2025, up 12.4% year over year. With retail IT spending shifting from system building to business-value-driven projects, PaaS, data platforms and AI services have taken a larger share, and industry solution capabilities became a core growth driver with a 13.9% annual gain. Tencent Cloud has integrated PaaS, SaaS and CaaS, or consulting as a service, into a product matrix spanning platforms, applications and AI services.

IDC global research shows AI and Agentic AI are accelerating into retail PaaS and SaaS products, powering smart shopping guides, demand forecasting, automated replenishment, intelligent pricing and customer operations in scale. Inside enterprises, AI agents are taking over frequent operational tasks such as store inspections, replenishment and customer service. Luckin Coffee and Haoxianglai are using Tencent Cloud's agent development platform to build store AI inspection algorithms. Wuliangye Nongxiangjiu created five AI agents that handle 70% of basic business inquiries from terminal stores, distributors and employees. Bloomage Biotech adopted Tencent's AI quality-inspection capability to achieve defect response within seconds and full traceability.

In marketing and service, McDonald's introduced an AI Agent ordering solution built on Tencent's smart cockpit plan to make the customer experience more convenient. Yili's shopping-guide agent and ordering agent lifted orders by 26% and conversion rates by 39%. DeRUCCI connected with more than 18,000 potential customers in three months through Tencent's AI-native marketing cloud, improving conversion efficiency and average order value.

IDC noted that Tencent Cloud's retail cloud capabilities come not only from PaaS and SaaS offerings but also from the guiding role of CaaS in solution delivery. By putting industry insight and business diagnosis up front, the approach covers scenario planning, technology selection, implementation and validation, reducing the mismatch between technical abilities and business needs. As AI moves to wide-scale deployment, this model is expected to evolve into an FDE path. During the past six months, Tencent experts trained Mengniu staff before its AI contest, co-created the training and competition mechanism and delivered support throughout, helping incubate nearly 200 AI efficiency-boosting scenarios at the business frontline. Tencent also held WorkBuddy workshops with Li-Ning, Moutai Digital Technology, China Resources Beer, Shanghai Jahwa and Dong-E-E-Jiao to move AI from single-point tools to broad adoption.

Tencent Cloud is also helping retailers go global. CP AXTRA, the retail arm of CP Group, has deployed Tencent Cloud's big-data solution to raise supermarket efficiency. Japan's No. 1 restaurant-ordering platform Tabelog uses Tencent Cloud Mall to offer visitors convenient reservation services. DFI Retail Group is exploring AI applications with the Hunyuan large model and Tencent Marketing Cloud to reshape customer interactions. Chinese brands expanding overseas, including Chagee, Mixue, Pop Mart and Chow Tai Fook, have chosen Tencent Cloud as a digital foundation for their international operations.

The company said its retail cloud clients have exceeded 1,000. It will continue to provide integrated data, model, application and ecosystem capabilities to help retailers unlock existing customer value and pursue sustainable growth in the AI-driven phase.