Goldman Sachs research reports indicate that QuestMobile's statistics show that the total usage time of the top 400 mobile applications (APPS) in China increased by 6% year-on-year in August this year, faster than the 4% growth in July, with the e-commerce APPs reaching an 8% increase, slowing down from July's 15%, while the gaming sector slightly decreased by 1% compared to the same period last year.

Specifically, the user engagement of e-commerce platforms remains healthy, with leading platforms JD.com (09618.HK)(JD.US) and PDD Holdings (PDD.US) experiencing year-on-year increases in usage time of 24% and 16% respectively, while Alibaba (09988.HK)(BABA.US) saw a 2% year-on-year decline. At the same time, the proportion of daily active users (DAU) of the business versions, which reflects the trend of merchants' entry and retention on each platform, remains stable, with Alibaba, PDD Holdings, and TikTok accounting for 41%, 25%, and 20% respectively.

After examining the performance of ten key verticals including e-commerce, gaming, video, social, food delivery, local services, groceries, freight matching, online recruitment, and real estate agency, Goldman Sachs is currently more bullish on Tencent (00700.HK), Meituan (03690.HK), Xiaomi (01810.HK), Yunmanman (YMM.US), Tencent Music (01698.HK)(TME.US), Alibaba, and PDD Holdings.