Tencent's Q1 Revenue Surpasses Expectations Amid Economic Recovery

Tencent Holdings Ltd. did better than expected in making money and profits. This happened because their video platform, similar to TikTok, became more popular compared to ByteDance Ltd. This helped them grow even though China's economy was not doing well. People spent more time on WeChat's videos, which made Tencent's income go up by 62%. This shows that Tencent is trying hard to get more people to use their platform instead of ByteDance's. The company that owns a lot of Tencent's stock, Prosus NV, saw its stock price go up by 2.9%. Tencent is focusing more on WeChat to make more money during tough economic times. This extra money can help Tencent while they work on new things like games and generative AI. Their gaming division used to be very important, but now they need a new popular game because of stricter rules and slower growth. Tencent's Supercell will soon release a new game after five years. Tencent also shared how much money gamers spent, which went up in the first quarter of 2024. Tencent is also looking into generative AI like other big internet companies. They have a big language model called Hunyuan that they use in search and online marketing. Tencent is also planning to buy back a lot of its own stock, showing that they are growing up in the Chinese tech world. Tencent's revenue went up by 6% in the first quarter, which was better than what experts thought. Their advertising and business services did well, but their games business, which makes a lot of money, did not do as well. Tencent made 159.5 billion yuan in revenue in the first quarter. They made more money from ads and their video platform, WeChat Video Accounts, which competes with ByteDance's Douyin. Tencent's chief strategy officer said they improved their ad technology and made tools to help advertisers. However, he thinks that advertising growth might slow down in the future because of the economy. Tencent's gaming revenue in China went down by 2% in the first quarter. Their two main games, Honor of Kings and Peacekeeper Elite, made less money. Tencent is working on making these games better, and they believe things will improve in the future. Their net profit went up by 62% to 41.8 billion yuan, which was less than what experts thought. A research analyst said that gaming revenue might get better in the second quarter because of new games coming out.