Tencent aims to hook more online gamers, viewers with TV tie-ups

To hook more users to play Honour of Kings, watch its dramas and variety shows, Tencent has been teaming up with China’s biggest TV makers

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Tencent doesn’t just want gamers and viewers to enjoy its contents on mobile devices, but it also wants them to bring the contents onto their TV screens in their living rooms. Photo: Xinhua

Li Taoin Shenzhen

Published: 10:15pm, 5 Jul 2017Updated: 9:04am, 6 Jul 2017

Tencent Holdings, the largest social network operator in China, aims to expand coverage of its content products, such as videos and games, from mobile devices to television screens after teaming up with China’s major TV manufacturers.

The latest cooperation with TCL Group will allow Tencent, one of China’s major content producers of television series, variety shows and popular computer and online games, to tap TCL’s internet TV users and the hundreds of millions of television owners, said Guo Tong, chief executive of FFalcon Technology during a press conference in Shenzhen on Wednesday. FFalcon is a wholly-owned subsidiary of TCL Multimedia Technology Holdings.

China’s multi-billion dollar online gaming market is the world’s largest. Photo: Reuters

Hong Kong-listed Tencent announced on Monday that its Tencent Digital has agreed to invest 450 million yuan (US$66 million) for a 16.67 per cent stake in Shenzhen Thunderbird Network Technology, an internet television operator backed by TCL Multimedia.

The strategic investment will make Tencent Digital the second-largest shareholder of Thunderbird, while Hong Kong-listed TCL Multimedia, which indirectly owns Thunderbird through FFalcon, will have its stake in the reduced from 54.05 per cent to 45.55 per cent.

FFalcon will create a new smart TV environment that combines integrated online and offline channels, hardware products, internet contents to host the massive copyrighted content from Tencent, according to Guo.

Customised games by Tencent, sales from online application store and membership fees are expected to become major sources of income for FFalcon.

Due to the fundamental difference in format between smart TV, personal computers and mobile devices, Guo said it was unrealistic to migrate Tencent’s popular personal computer and mobile games, such as the Honour of Kings, to TV terminals directly.