Chinese tech giant Tencent on Watch Peaky BlindersWednesday reported 10% year-on-year revenue growth to RMB 154.6 billion ($21.5 billion). The firm’s net income decreased for the first time in 2023, falling 9% compared to the same period last year to RMB 36.2 billion, but this figure was still RMB 10 billion higher than the two preceding quarters. Ma Huateng, chairman and CEO of Tencent, said in the company’s earnings report that the revenue was “high quality”, as online advertising and international games showed 20% and 14% growth, respectively. The robust growth in advertising was largely due to the huge demand for Video Accounts, Tencent’s mobile ad network, and Weixin Search, according to the company. Executives also highlighted the “great potential for growth” in the monetization of WeChat. On a related earnings call, senior figures from the company noted the recent chip curbs imposed by the US, saying that Tencent has “one of the largest inventories of advanced artificial intelligence chips of any vendor in China,” enough for the firm to upgrade multiple versions of its Hunyuan large language model, they said. [Tencent]
