With almost 1 billion WeChat users, Tencent’s Q1 revenue beats estimates
Sales at China’s largest social network operator jumped 55 per cent in the first quarter on mobile games and online advertising.
Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings on Wednesday posted record-high revenue for the first quarter of this year on the back of a strong performance in mobile games, online advertising growth and a rise in digital subscriptions.
Revenue soared 55 per cent to 49.6 billion yuan (US$7.2 billion), beating estimates of 46.4 billion yuan in a Bloomberg poll of analysts.
Tencent, the world’s largest video game company by revenue, also reported a 58 per cent jump in net profit to 14.5 billion yuan, beating projections of 13 billion yuan.
Its mobile game Honour of Kings, which was the top-grossing smartphone title in China last year, had more than 50 million daily active users as of December 31. Tencent said it also plans to adapt hit novels and anime into mobile games that will be available to users on its social media and messaging platforms WeChat and QQ.
“We’ll continue to build that presence, through investments and acquisitions ... We’re going to launch our self-developed games over time into the overseas market,” Lau said.
Benjamin Wu, a senior analyst at Pacific Epoch, estimated that the Honour of Kings mobile game generated about 3 billion yuan in revenue for Tencent in the first quarter, and expected the company’s strong growth in gaming to continue.
