Investors have got the message on Tencent
It has the most humble of names, but that has not prevented it from rising to the top 10 on the Hong Kong stock exchange in a little over five years.
Social network operator Tencent Holdings became the No10 firm in Hong Kong yesterday, thanks to a rally in the past quarter that raised its market capitalisation past HK$290 billion. It is also the best performing blue chip this year, with a 219 per cent gain so far.
Hitting a fresh high for the 11th time in the past three months, Tencent closed at HK$159.60, 43 times its listing price of HK$3.70 in June 2004.
At that valuation, Tencent is now worth more than China Unicom or Cheung Kong (Holdings), or about twice as big as Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, and three times the size of Hongkong Electric Holdings.
China's No1 instant messenger firm, with 484 million active account holders, is trying to persuade more users to take up subscriptions, as more than 10 per cent of them are paying for non-game services, according to Deutsche Bank, which upgraded Tencent to HK$177 on Thursday.
