If you look at Chinese-speaking regions outside mainland China such as Hong Kong or Taiwan, foreign brands such as Yahoo!, Google or Facebook tend to dominate and are more successful.
A third possibility is that these foreign companies were not able to gain early traction in mainland China, due to government policies (the Great Firewall) and/or the company finding it hard to navigate the Chinese bureaucracy. Perhaps the companies at that earlier point in time (late '90s/early '00s) simply did not pay enough attention to the Chinese market and focused on expanding in the more developed parts of Asia with better Internet bandwidth and speeds, leaving room for native Chinese companies to grow and reap the first mover's advantage.
A third possibility is that these foreign companies were not able to gain early traction in mainland China, due to government policies (the Great Firewall) and/or the company finding it hard to navigate the Chinese bureaucracy. Perhaps the companies at that earlier point in time (late '90s/early '00s) simply did not pay enough attention to the Chinese market and focused on expanding in the more developed parts of Asia with better Internet bandwidth and speeds, leaving room for native Chinese companies to grow and reap the first mover's advantage.