Tencent sales grow fastest since 2021 in solid start to rocky year
Hong Kong – Tencent Holdings' revenue grew at its fastest pace in more than three years, affirming investors' expectations that China's gaming and social media leader will weather a potential global downturn in 2025.
The WeChat operator reported a faster-than-anticipated 13 per cent rise in sales to 180.02 billion yuan (S$32.4 billion) in the March quarter. Net income rose 14 per cent to 47.8 billion yuan, missing estimates in part because of rising spending on AI research and initiatives.
The numbers may lend confidence to investors who regard China's most valuable company as resistant to much of the economic turmoil surrounding the Trump administration's tariffs campaign. Its shares have gained more than 20 per cent in 2025. Yet Tencent runs a giant cloud, advertising and fintech services business vulnerable to economic shocks and a slowdown in domestic consumption.
Tencent is among the biggest beneficiaries of a Chinese tech renaissance triggered by DeepSeek, whose January release of the R1 model upended the idea of US AI dominance and rekindled interest in homegrown technology.
Tencent rushed to buy up AI chips around the end of 2024 to serve growing demand from cloud clients. Its apps, including WeChat and the ChatGPT-style Yuanbao, have gained users since integrating with DeepSeek's offering.
To counter a plateauing home market, the world's biggest games publisher has also focused on grooming what it calls evergreen franchises – established titles that players will stick with through multiple versions and updates.
2024's breakout hits, Dungeon & Fighter Mobile and Delta Force, helped Tencent stem a contraction in its marquee business. But it remains to be seen whether players will stick around. Still, investors are betting it will successfully experiment with newer initiatives such as mini-games and the Hunyuan foundation model.
Executives including billionaire founder Pony Ma have outlined plans to rely on both third-party and self-made models to win the AI race, mirroring a playbook that seeded Tencent's gaming leadership two decades ago.
Many observers have drawn parallels between AI and the rise of smartphone apps – a tidal shift that will create new winners and threaten the old guard. Tencent's longtime foe Alibaba Group has only gotten more aggressive, pledging to spend billions to build data centers and investing in many of China's up-and-coming AI platforms.
For now, WeChat remains Tencent's most reliable asset as it takes on bigger monetisation roles in area from advertising to mini-games and TikTok-style shopping. Though broader consumer sentiment remains shaky, Tencent has sought to introduce even more features to its all-in-one platform – including a gifting function that's received a mixed reception from both merchants and buyers.
Tencent also remains the undisputed leader in mobile games. It earned roughly four times as much as the second closest publisher in 2024, according to Appfigures.
It's unclear whether Tencent can replicate the success of last year. Its pipeline for 2025 includes highly anticipated titles like Honor of Kings: World and the Chinese rollouts of Path of Exile 2 and Goddess of Victory: Nikke. But few are considered sure-fire hits like DnF Mobile, which owed its success to loyal players trying out a fresh version of their PC favorite.
In a deal announced in March, Tencent said it will invest about US$1 billion (S$1.3 billion) to acquire a 25 per cent stake in a new entity holding Ubisoft Entertainment's most celebrated intellectual properties. That could give the Chinese company a bigger say in shaping the future of global franchises like Assassin's Creed, which Tencent is adapting for mobile. BLOOMBERG
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- Straits Times
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Straits Times
7 hours ago
- Straits Times
Outline emerges of Putin's offer to end his war in Ukraine
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is due to travel to Washington on Monday to discuss with Trump a possible settlement of the full-scale war, which Putin launched in February 2022. Although the summit failed to secure the ceasefire he said he had wanted, Trump said in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity that he and Putin had discussed land transfers and security guarantees for Ukraine, and had "largely agreed". "I think we're pretty close to a deal," he said, adding: "Ukraine has to agree to it. Maybe they'll say 'no'." The two sources, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said their knowledge of Putin's proposals was mostly based on discussions between leaders in Europe, the U.S. and Ukraine, and noted it was not complete. Trump briefed Zelenskiy and European leaders on his summit discussions early on Saturday. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. 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UKRAINIAN LAND FOR PEACE At face value, at least some of the demands would present huge challenges for Ukraine's leadership to accept. Putin's offer ruled out a ceasefire until a comprehensive deal is reached, blocking a key demand of Zelenskiy, whose country is hit daily by Russian drones and ballistic missiles. Under the proposed Russian deal, Kyiv would fully withdraw from the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions in return for a Russian pledge to freeze the front lines in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the sources said. Ukraine has already rejected any retreat from Ukrainian land such as the Donetsk region, where its troops are dug in and which Kyiv says serves as a crucial defensive structure to prevent Russian attacks deeper into its territory. Russia would be prepared to return comparatively small tracts of Ukrainian land it has occupied in the northern Sumy and northeastern Kharkiv regions, the sources said. Russia holds pockets of the Sumy and Kharkiv regions that total around 440 square km, according to Ukraine's Deep State battlefield mapping project. Ukraine controls around 6,600 square km of Donbas, which comprises the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and is claimed by Russia. Although the Americans have not spelled this out, the sources said they knew Russia's leader was also seeking - at the very least - formal recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014. It was not clear if that meant recognition by the U.S. government or, for instance, all Western powers and Ukraine. Kyiv and its European allies reject formal recognition of Moscow's rule in the peninsula. They said Putin would also expect the lifting of at least some of the array of sanctions on Russia. However, they could not say if this applied to U.S. as well as European sanctions. Trump said on Friday he did not immediately need to consider retaliatory tariffs on countries such as China for buying Russian oil - which is subject to a range of Western sanctions - but might have to "in two or three weeks." Ukraine would also be barred from joining the NATO military alliance, though Putin seemed to be open to Ukraine receiving some kind of security guarantees, the sources said. However, they added that it was unclear what this meant in practice. European leaders said Trump had discussed security guarantees for Ukraine during their conversation on Saturday and also broached an idea for an "Article 5"-style guarantee outside the NATO military alliance. NATO regards any attack launched on one of its 32 members as an attack on all under its Article 5 clause. Joining the Atlantic alliance is a strategic objective for Kyiv that is enshrined in the country's constitution. Russia would also demand official status for the Russian language inside parts of, or across, Ukraine, as well as the right of the Russian Orthodox Church to operate freely, the sources said. Ukraine's security agency accuses the Moscow-linked church of abetting Russia's war on Ukraine by spreading pro-Russian propaganda and housing spies, something denied by the church which says it has cut canonical ties with Moscow. Ukraine has passed a law banning Russia-linked religious organisations, of which it considers the church to be one. However, it has not yet started enforcing the ban. REUTERS
