INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Warnings that Tencent, Asia highest-valued tech company, might suffer a rare poor quarter of business proved unwarranted after the company
smashed analyst expectations for its latest earnings thanks to its fast-growing mobile games business.
The company reported a net profit
of23.29 billion CNY ($3.7 billion) on revenue of73.53 billion yuan ($11.5 billion) — beatinga Thomson Reuters estimate of 71.04 billion
Net profit was up 61 percent year-on-year, while revenue increased 48 percent over the same period.
Tencent has historically done well in
the games space with the PC its cash cow, butlast year its smartphone games business overtook that of PC based on revenue.
The gap is now
becoming noticeableand there plenty of scope for it to increase further.
Tencent has a hand in the two biggest games in the smartphone world
today: Player Unknown Battlegrounds (PUBG) and Fortnite
The company secured the rights to distribute both ‘battle royale& games in China and beyond and said it is just beginning to monetize them
(Fortnite is due to launch in China imminently)
Another title —Honour of Kings — was the world highest-grossing mobile game last year thanks to its China-based users and Tencenthas
been pushing it toworldwide audiences
Finally, a fourth game —QQ Speed Mobile — showed promising revenue after being taken from PC to mobile.
Tencent said mobile game revenue
hit 21.7 billion RMB ($3.4 billion) during the quarter, up 68 year-on-year
PC-based games, meanwhile, took in sales of14.1 billion RMB ($2.2 billion) to remain flat over the past 12 months.
Elsewhere, the company
said that its WeChat messaging service surpassed one billion active user accounts for the first time
Also in WeChat, the company has built upon its Mini Program feature — which lets developers create apps that tie into WeChat — by
introducing Mini Games, there are currently over 500
It also merged WeChat Pay, its mobile payment service which supports offline, with Mini Programs.
