Tencent sees WeChat to grow profit
Print Edition
TENCENT Holdings Ltd, China’s biggest listed technology company, is boosting its profits on smartphones as it transplants its strength in social networking and gaming onto mobile. Now it aims to repeat that for new business ventures.
At the moment, Shenzhen-based Tencent makes most of its money from the division which includes its video gaming business and sales of digital goods.
But Tencent has already spent more than US$1.2 billion in areas like e-commerce, real estate and digital mapping since the beginning of 2014, as it looks to develop mobile messaging app WeChat — Weixin in Chinese — as a gateway for all users’ needs on a smartphone.
Worth more than US$120 billion by market value, Tencent is China’s largest listed tech firm and has become the biggest potential rival to Alibaba Group Holding, the Chinese e-commerce giant readying itself for a blockbuster US listing.
“On Weixin they have an extremely strong presence on mobile and among consumers — they’ve taken care of their short game very well but if you look at the long game it looks great as well,” said Michael Clendenin, managing director of Shanghai-based RedTech Advisors.
“If investors have to wait two or three years for mobile commerce to take off that’s fine, because in the meantime social and gaming revenues are a pretty nice bridge to that.”
Tencent’s many investments include a March tie-up with JD.com Inc, ranked a distant second behind Alibaba in China online retail and now heading for its own New York listing which could raise as much as US$1.7 billion.
Many of its new investments are in mobile commerce, like hailing a taxi with an app or a service to find and book the nearest restaurant or cinema seats.
Tencent’s previous efforts at e-commerce didn’t fare well against competition from the likes of Alibaba, which has an iron grip on online shopping in China with an almost 80 percent market share. When Tencent invested in JD.com, it divested control of its e-commerce assets to the Alibaba rival.
That may be changing, as Tencent capitalizes on WeChat’s reach.
“Tencent has lots of ambition on mobile commerce,” said Wang Xiaofeng, a Beijing-based tech analyst with Forrester.
“I do think it has great market potential here because consumers and marketers want to use the WeChat platform to do mobile commerce,” Wang said.
Tencent said yesterday that its net income soared 60 percent to 6.46 billion yuan (US$1.04 billion) in the three months ended in March from 4.04 billion yuan a year earlier, its largest-ever quarterly profit and the fastest growth in three years. Analysts had forecast profit of 4.93 billion yuan.
(Reuters)
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 娌狪CP璇侊細娌狪CP澶05050403鍙-1
- |
- 浜掕仈缃戞柊闂讳俊鎭湇鍔¤鍙瘉锛31120180004
- |
- 缃戠粶瑙嗗惉璁稿彲璇侊細0909346
- |
- 骞挎挱鐢佃鑺傜洰鍒朵綔璁稿彲璇侊細娌瓧绗354鍙
- |
- 澧炲肩數淇′笟鍔＄粡钀ヨ鍙瘉锛氭勃B2-20120012
Copyright 漏 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
