A sports‑themed display in a Beijing mall ahead of the World Cup kickoff on June 11, 2026.
CNBC | Yin Hon Chow
BEIJING — The era of portable mini‑televisions for watching World Cup matches on the move is over.
Today, Chinese fans simply pull out their smartphones. Soccer enjoys broad popularity in China, even though the national team has not qualified for the tournament since 2002.
“We mostly watch on smartphones, very little on TV,” said Faye Jin. “The TV at home is basically not used. Maybe we turn it on for some competitions at the last minute, but most of the time we’re on our phones.”
This year, Chinese social‑media platform Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) secured the rights to stream World Cup matches for free to all users. The partnership with state‑owned China Media Group, which operates China Central Television (CCTV), was finalized less than a month before the tournament began. CCTV’s mobile and smart‑TV apps allow subscribers to watch live games and replays without ads.
CNBC spot checks found that Beijing residents are less inclined to gather in bars this time, opting instead to follow matches online, often from home.
Because of the 12‑plus‑hour time difference, many games air during the middle of the night or early morning working hours. Interviews have been translated from Mandarin.
“If my friends are interested in the World Cup they will definitely watch at home,” said Xu Wang, who works at Absolut Bar in a tourist‑heavy area of Beijing. “It’s hard to find a suitable place to gather at that time of night, especially because everyone is spread out across the city.”
The shift to mobile devices builds on China’s digital‑first trend.
During the 2022 World Cup, China accounted for nearly half of all global viewing hours on digital and social platforms, according to FIFA.
Widespread 5G coverage and inexpensive roaming packages also help. QuestMobile reports that Chinese users spend 40 % of their daily mobile time watching videos, primarily on short‑video apps such as ByteDance’s Douyin.
To stay updated, Quan Zhao scrolls through Douyin and plans to watch only the final few games in full, undecided about attending any in person.
This reflects the challenge Xiaohongshu faces in turning World Cup streaming into broader user growth.
Douyin held streaming rights for the 2022 tournament when many Chinese were still under Covid‑19 restrictions. This time, the platform promotes a lineup of soccer commentators, creators, and AI‑powered World Cup‑themed visual effects.
Douyin boasts over 1 billion monthly active users, while Xiaohongshu had 245.3 million as of March, according to QuestMobile.
A shopping‑focused version of Douyin topped the list of most‑downloaded apps on Apple’s China App Store on Monday, followed by CCTV’s streaming app in second place and the official sports‑betting app in sixth. Xiaohongshu ranked ninth.
Chinese tech firms are also looking abroad. Tencent Cloud reported that two‑thirds of official World Cup broadcasting platforms in the Asia‑Pacific region rely on its services, supporting streams in 16 territories, including Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Argentina— the widest coverage ever provided by a Chinese cloud provider.