This document compares two Chinese companies, Birdie and Penguin. [1] Birdie was founded in 1996 and created the first instant messaging software called ICQ. [2] In 1999, ICQ was bought by AOL and had 10 million active users. [3] Penguin was founded in 2000 by Huateng Ma and is now the largest internet company in China, providing instant messaging, social media, online payments and more, with over 700 million IM users.