Chinese internet titan Tencent Holdings plans to step up investments in strategic online-to-offline (O2O) partnerships to compete with aggressive rivals Alibaba Group and Baidu, following solid earnings growth in the quarter ended June 30. Revenue for the quarter ending June rose to 23.43 billion yuan ($3.67 billion), Tencent said in it earnings statement on Wednesday, compared to the 24.12 billion yuan forecast made in a Thomson Reuters Smartestimate poll of 11 analysts.
Advertisement
The company will aim to port some of its successful PC games to the mobile platform, executives said on a conference call.
Tencent has built a lucrative business by offering online games to users of its popular messaging and social- networking services.
Bolstering Tencent’s overall revenue appeared to be its internet advertising equipment, how the business organisation said almost… Tencent reported that its operating margin rose to 43% from 40% a year ago.
While mobile advertising is expected to be the engine for Tencent’s growth over the next few years, mobile payments is another area where Tencent is placing its bets. The company is expected to increase its presence in the mobile-payments market thanks to the popularity of various e-commerce services that are integrated in its messaging apps, analysts say. Moreover, a user is treated to a consortium of services that in most other countries would require standalone apps to be downloaded.
Advertisement
It has also offered to buy eLong, a major Chinese online travel portal, as part of its drive into the traditional economy, according to Bloomberg News. That means the application has grown almost 10% since its announcement at the end of last year, which brings it closer to the 600 million active users found in Facebook’s Messenger app. In March, Mobile QQ had 603 million users while WeChat had 549 million users.
