Both the investment amount and volume of private equity and venture capital (PE/VC) investment in China's Telecommunications, Media and Technology (TMT) industry in 2014 reached the highest levels since 2012, read a report released by accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) on Thursday.
According to the report, the total PE/VC investment for the TMT in 2014 hit $15.9 billion, and the number of investment deals increased to 1,241 or 47 percent higher from 2013.
Overall PE/VC investment and TMT industry investment in the second half of 2014 was at a high level which continued in the first half of this year, the report said.
China saw a total of 618 PE/VC investment deals across all industries totaling $16.06 billion in the third quarter of 2014, with 411 PE/VC investments in the TMT industry, accounting for 67 percent of total volume across all industries.
In the fourth quarter of 2014, there were a total of 593 PE/VC investment deals, with a deal value of $11.23 billion, and 371 of these were TMT investments, accounting for 63 percent of total PE/VC volume.
Gao Jianbin, PwC China Technology Leader, attributed the rise to a series of incentive policies for entrepreneurship and innovation introduced by the government, and the booming local stock markets also brought about a wealth effect, which encouraged more investment in high-growth enterprises.
Further, the investment went mainly into the e-commerce and video websites in the third quarter, but flowed to the mobile Internet sector in the fourth quarter, as the deal volume in telecommunications and mobile investment reached $2.50 billion or 53 percent of the total, surpassing the Internet sector.
Among the regions, Beijing ranked first with $5.31 billion in investments in the second half of last year, followed by Shanghai and Shenzhen.
