Tencent beats estimates with 47% profit jump, driven by video gaming

Video gaming sales, traditionally Tencent’s strongest revenue driver, grew 14% in the domestic market

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The Tencent headquarters in Shenzhen, China’s southern Guangdong province. Photo: AFP

Iris Dengin ShenzhenandAnn Caoin Shanghai

Published: 5:14pm, 13 Nov 2024Updated: 9:51pm, 13 Nov 2024

Tencent Holdings, operator of China’s biggest social media app and the world’s largest video gaming business by revenue, beat analyst estimates with a 47 per cent profit jump in the third quarter, helped by renewed growth in the video gaming segment.

Profit reached 53.2 billion yuan (US$7.4 billion) in the three months ended September, up from 36.2 billion yuan in the same period a year ago. That exceeded the consensus estimates of 45.3 billion yuan from analysts polled by Bloomberg.

Revenue for the Shenzhen-based firm reached 167.2 billion yuan, up 8 per cent year on year from 154.6 billion. It was in line with analyst estimates of 167.9 billion yuan.

“During the third quarter of 2024, we delivered robust revenue growth in our games business, underpinned by consistent performance of evergreen games globally and contributions from new games with evergreen potential,” said Tencent founder and CEO Pony Ma Huateng.

Robust video game sales boosted Tencent’s latest quarterly earnings. Photo: AFP

“We are increasingly seeing tangible benefits of deploying [artificial intelligence (AI)] across our products and operations, including marketing services and cloud, and will continue investing in AI technology, tools and solutions that assist users and partners,” Ma said.