Tencent’s profit in first quarter soars almost 60% on games and payment app
Beijing/Bengaluru — Tencent, China’s biggest gaming and social media firm by revenue, overshot estimates to post a 58% rise in first-quarter profit on Wednesday, aided by strong growth in gaming and digital payments. The results represent Tencent’s highest quarterly profit growth in two-and-a-half years, reaching 14.3-billion yuan ($2.08bn) for the quarter. That was above a median forecast for a 13.2-billion yuan profit from eight analysts polled by Reuters. The firm, Asia’s most valuable company with a market value of $316bn, has sought to boost profits in2017 by expanding the use of its payments app, WeChat Pay, among local and international merchants. It wants to provide services for every shop owner in China within two years. It has also diversified its gaming portfolio and expanded new business lines, including cloud and artificial intelligence. Quarterly revenue was 49.5-billion yuan, representing a 55% year-over-year rise, compared to 32-billion yuan a year earlier. The firm ...
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