Tencent Holdings Ltd (0700)

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Tencent’s WeChat hits 1 billion milestone as Lunar New Year boosts monthly active users
WeChat’s monthly user numbers pass 1 billion, up from 980 million in third quarter last year, boosted by Lunar New Year social media activity

By Iris Deng
PUBLISHED : Monday, 05 March, 2018, 11:07am
UPDATED : Monday, 05 March, 2018, 1:46pm

WeChat hit the milestone of 1 billion monthly active users during the Lunar New Year in February, a “remarkable number” according to Tencent CEO Pony Ma Huateng who disclosed the figure at a Two Sessions media briefing in Beijing on Monday.  

The user numbers are up from 980 million in the third quarter of 2017, as reported in Tencent’s third quarter results.

More than 688 million WeChat users sent or received digital versions of “hongbao”, a Chinese tradition of giving money in red envelopes during the new year holiday season, pushing the monthly active users of WeChat hongbao to 800 million, Ma revealed on Saturday, as reported by Chinese tech media 36Kr.

WeChat, known as Weixin in China, is the country’s dominant messaging app, while it also serves as an all-in-one platform for social networking, mobile payments, car hailing, food delivery and more.

More details in http://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-gaming/art...ear-boosts

[Wildreamz]

Chinese gaming giant Tencent proposes 'digital contracts' that let parents and kids agree on reasonable play times
PUBLISHEDMAR 4, 2018, 4:52 PM SGT
http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-as...s-and-kids

BEIJING- Chinese Internet giant Tencent Holdings is looking to introduce a new feature to its video games - one that could solve an increasingly common problem faced by parents: What is a reasonable amount of time children should spend playing video games?

That question could be settled once and for all when the gaming giant introduces digital contracts to its video games - a feature that would allow both parents and their children to agree on reasonable play times, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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Innovation at it's finest.

(vested)

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Tencent launches Battlegrounds on mobile in the US
The mobile version of the multiplayer online game already tops the app charts in 41 markets

Amanda Lee
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 21 March, 2018, 4:04pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 21 March, 2018, 4:53pm

Tencent, China’s largest game publisher, has launched the mobile version of one of the world’s bestselling titles in the US, to run on both iOS and Android.

The Shenzhen-based company is due to issue quarterly earnings later on Wednesday.

The game, Battlegrounds, or PUBG to gamers, was created by PlayerUnknown and is already number two on Apple’s iOS in the US, and closing in on chart-topper Fornite, according to San-Francisco-based app intelligence firm Sensor Tower, and that is still without a launch in Japan and the UK.

The mobile version of the multiplayer online battle royale game, already topping the app charts in 14 countries, allows up to 100 players to fight each other until the last man’s standing. It is number two in Canada.

More details in http://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-gaming/art...-mobile-us

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Tencent Profit Beats Estimates as WeChat Games Drive Growth
The mobile version of the multiplayer online game already tops the app charts in 41 markets

By Lulu Yilun Chen
March 21, 2018, 4:59 PM GMT+8 Updated on March 21, 2018, 5:22 PM GMT+8

Tencent Holdings Ltd. posted quarterly profit that beat estimates, bolstered by mobile game blockbusters like Honour of Kings and a growing ad business.

Net income at China’s largest company almost doubled to a record 20.8 billion yuan ($3.3 billion) in the three months ended December. That compares with the 16.6 billion-yuan average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales for the quarter were 66.4 billion yuan, short of projections for 68.6 billion yuan.

Tencent’s business revolves around its vast social networks WeChat and QQ, through which it distributes games, videos and music. The two messaging platforms now anchor nascent advertising and financial services businesses that’ve boosted confidence that the company will be able to sustain growth and -- through fine-tuning various services -- begin to grab a larger slice of an ads pie now dominated by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

More details in https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...ive-growth

[specuvestor]

South African media company Naspers Ltd. is cashing in a tiny sliver of one of the greatest venture-capital investments ever.
The company is selling $10.6 billion of shares in Tencent Holdings Ltd., equal to 2 percent of the stock in the Chinese operator of the WeChat messaging service, the Cape Town-based company said in a statementThursday.
The sale comes hours after Tencent, Asia’s most valuable company, warnedit will sacrifice short-term margins, spending on content and technology in pursuit of growth. While the forecast led to a 5 percent slump in Tencent’s stock, Naspers said it still considers the company “to be one of the very best growth enterprises in any industry in the world, managed by an exceptionally able team.”
Naspers might have remained an obscure publisher of South African newspapers and operator of pay-TV services if not for its decision in 2001 to invest $32 million in Tencent, a then little-known Chinese startup. The stake is now worth $175 billion and given that Naspers has a market value of about $125.5 billion, it means investors place no value on Naspers’ other operation

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...nvestments

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A Tencent-Backed Fashion App Is Seeking a $4 Billion U.S. IPO

By Lulu Yilun Chen
April 16, 2018, 9:12 AM GMT+8 Updated on April 16, 2018, 11:11 AM GMT+8

Yet another Chinese technology company is headed for an initial public offering.

Meilishuo, the online fashion retailer backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd., is in talks with several investment banks about a U.S. initial public offering that could value the startup at about $4 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The women-focused online retailer hosted a bake-off to discuss IPO prospects with potential advisors and underwriters, the people said, asking not to be identified talking about private negotiations.

Meilishuo, which merged with rival Mogujie in 2016 to form a company with $3 billion in sales, was said to have been valued at $3 billion at the time of that deal. The company, whose name means “Beauty Talk,” is one of the more popular fashion and cosmetics retailers online, a niche it’s clung to despite the dominance of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and JD.com Inc. Meilishuo’s envisioned $4 billion valuation is an initial target and could change if a deal proceeds, the people said.

More details in https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...on-u-s-ipo

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Social media and driving can soon mix with voice WeChat
Technology companies and carmakers are competing for control of the in-vehicle infotainment system and content

Celia Chen
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 24 May, 2018, 10:39am
UPDATED : Thursday, 24 May, 2018, 4:44pm

Tencent Holdings said it was working on a voice-operated version of its popular WeChat social app for use in vehicles, a move that would extend the platform’s content and services to millions of drivers on the road.

“[The pure voice version] without screen can guarantee people keep their eyes on the road, and not on smartphone screen for even one second,” Pony Ma Huateng, Tencent CEO, said at the Tencent Cloud Summit in Guangzhou on Wednesday, according to local media reports. “If [our pure voice] version comes successfully, it will be embedded into Internet of Vehicles and work in a very smart way.”

Tencent has not pushed its WeChat service in its original form for in-vehicle use out of safety concerns, he said. “We do not want our users to eye on screen and read WeChat message [when they drive]. There are potential risks if they do so.”

Some vehicles companies have developed and embedded WeChat in their in-vehicle infotainment systems, but Ma said these versions were not authorised by Tencent.

More details in http://www.scmp.com/tech/social-gadgets/...on-drivers

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Tencent shares fall for a fourth day, wiping out US$45.6 billion in social network’s market value

Enoch Yiu
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 15 August, 2018, 11:44am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 15 August, 2018, 5:53pm

Shares of Tencent Holdings plunged for a fourth day in Hong Kong to a 10-month low, as investors sold the stock amid concerns of tepid results when China’s biggest games publisher and social network operator publishes its second-quarter earnings.

The stock fell by as much as 3.9 per cent to HK$335, the lowest intraday level since September last year. The stock has lost 10 per cent of its capitalisation in four days of declines, wiping out HK$358 billion (US$45.6 billion) in market value since Friday.

The Shenzhen-based company may report its worst quarter in three years on Wednesday, with second-quarter net profit likely to rise by 6 per cent to 19.3 billion yuan (US$2.8 billion), according to Bloomberg’s consensus estimates. Revenue may rise 37 per cent to 77.66 billion yuan, the slowest quarterly increment since the third quarter of 2015, according to estimates.

“Investors are selling Tencent as they expect the company’s results” to be lacklustre, said Ben Kwong Man-bun, a director of KGI Asia, who warned that as the sell-off has touched the entire technology sector, “Tencent’s decline marks the beginning so there’s more declines to come.”

The selling pressure on Tencent increased this week, after the company dropped the top-selling video game Monster Hunter: World from its WeGame platform, less than a week after its launch, in the latest case of Beijing’s tightening controls over online content.

More details in https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/...ion-social

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Tencent stock slides to fresh one-year low as investors’ sentiment takes a battering
Tencent has lost US$190 billion of its market value within eight months, more than the entire market cap of Nextflix, and twice that of Goldman Sachs

Laura He
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 06 September, 2018, 1:55pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 06 September, 2018, 4:11pm

Shares in internet giant Tencent Holdings slipped further on Thursday, sinking to their lowest level in a year as already weak investor sentiment was battered by a flurry of negative news.

Concerns included reports that the authorities may impose a lofty tax on online video games as part of a tightening of regulations in the gaming industry, while funds are flowing out of Hong Kong at a rapid pace amid a crisis engulfing emerging markets.

On top of that, analysts said investors’ nerves may have been frazzled by an abrupt plunge in the shares of JD.com, a major e-commerce ally in which Tencent holds the largest stake, after the arrest of its CEO on suspicion of rape. The possibility of charges being brought against Richard Liu Qiangdong after his arrest and subsequent release last Friday in the US has cast doubt over JD’s future and Tencent’s smart-retail strategy as it takes on domestic rival Alibaba.

Tencent’s stock has fallen by a third since its peak on January 23, wiping out around HK$1.5 trillion (US$190 billion) of market value within eight months. That’s more than the entire market capitalisation of Nextflix, and equivalent to two Goldman Sachs.

In the past month alone, Tencent has shed 15 per cent, after Chinese regulators all but stopped approving new online video games and proposed tighter oversight to address what they see as an epidemic of gaming addiction among the country’s youth. As China’s largest video games company, Tencent derives 41 per cent of its total revenue from the business.

On Thursday, its share price fell to as low as HK$312.00, down 4 per cent from the previous session, after the Southern Metropolis Daily quoted anonymous sources as saying the government is mulling a special tax of as much as 35 per cent on each game, as well as a quota on the number of games released.

More details in https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/...-low-after

[weijian]

Tencent's gaming platform business model depends on addiction and so in a sense it is eroding its own moat, but one has to listen to Big Brother Xi. For a keen investor in China stocks, the imperative is always to listen/watch out for what the Gov says (more that what they actually do)

Tencent launches strictest verification system yet to detect minors after Beijing’s call for action on gaming

Chinese President Xi Jinping has spoken publicly about the need to help children’s eyesight and called for the nation to address the problem

https://www.scmp.com/tech/article/216301...r-beijings