Hong Kong — Tencent posted a better-than-expected 69% rise in quarterly profit, riding the success of games such as Honour of Kings and a rapidly expanding advertising business. China’s largest social network operator reported net income of 18-billion yuan ($2.7bn) in the September quarter, compared with projections for 15.8-billion yuan. Revenue gained 61% to 65.2 billion yuan, versus the 61-billion yuan projected. Shares in JSE-listed Naspers, which owns a third of Tencent, rose 2.98% to a record R3,698.50 on the news on Wednesday. Tencent, the operator of the WeChat messaging and entertainment service that has become near-ubiquitous across China, is pushing more and smarter advertising to its billion-plus users. The company, which acquired 12% of Snapchat owner Snap earlier in November, is also exploring new sources of growth in the cloud, financial services and movies and music. Shares in the company closed on Wednesday 1.3% lower. "Tencent still has a lot of potential for growt...

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