Latest news with #MartinLau
Tahawul Tech
18 hours ago
- Business
- Tahawul Tech
Tencent hits double-digit profit growth
Tencent, a Chinese internet company, recorded double-digit profit and revenue growth across the majority of its business units in Q2 2025, as it continued to invest capital expenditure into AI initiatives. Chair and CEO Pony Ma stated in its earnings call the company is 'striving to bring further benefits of AI to consumers and enterprises through powering more use cases' within WeChat, driving usage of its AI native app and upgrading the capabilities of its foundation models. Total capex increased 119 per cent year-on-year to CNY19.1 billion ($2.7 billion), driven by increased investments in GPUs and servers to ramp up AI capabilities. R&D spending increased 17 per cent to CNY24.3 billion. President Martin Lau explained that although it doesn't have clarity on the chip import situation, it has enough chips for 'training and continuous upgrade of our existing models. And we also have many options for inference chips'. Net profit in the April to June period rose 16 per cent to CNY56 billion, while revenue increased 15 per cent to CNY184.5 billion. Domestic and international games, part of its value-added services unit, improved 17 per cent and 35 per cent to CNY40.4 billion and CNY18.8 billon, respectively. Social networks revenue increased 7 per cent to CNY32.2 billion. Marketing services revenue improved 20 per cent to CNY35.8 billion, supported by an upgrade to its advertising foundation model, which it noted led to a better performance of ads. Fintech and business services grew 10 per cent to CNY55.5 billion. Combined monthly active users of messaging service WeChat and Chinese version Weixin were up 3 per cent to 1.4 billion. MAUs on its QQ mobile messaging platform fell 7 per cent to 532 million. Source: Mobile World Live Image Credit: Tencent
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Tencent Just Crushed Earnings--But What It's Not Doing With AI Might Matter More
Tencent (TCEHY) just delivered a solid quarter revenue jumped 15% to 184.5 billion yuan ($25.7 billion), beating estimates by 3%, while net income climbed 17%, driven by strength across gaming, fintech, and advertising. Growth in ad sales was partly thanks to AI-enhanced targeting, giving the top line a lift. But instead of chasing AI headlines, management is choosing restraint. President Martin Lau made it clear: they won't burn capital on vanity metrics or bulk up teams unnecessarily. Capex hit 19 billion yuan this quarter, but Tencent is spending where it matters not throwing chips at the wall to see what sticks. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 8 Warning Sign with DASH. Rather than trying to out-launch rivals like Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) or ByteDance, Tencent is threading AI into what it already does best: gaming, cloud, and WeChat. Its Hunyuan model is powering internal tools and customer services, while the cloud unit rents out compute to companies training AI models. Still, costs are creeping up. Operating margins dipped 100 bps to 37.5% Bloomberg Intelligence sees AI-related expenses as the culprit. Yet the bigger picture holds: Tencent is delivering while avoiding the hype trap. The company has already added $170B in market cap this year, though it still trades below peers like Meta on valuation. Investors are also watching Tencent's pipeline. Valorant Mobile a high-profile release from Riot Games drops August 19, with more to follow at Gamescom. Meanwhile, WeChat continues to be Tencent's monetization engine, from search and video ads to mini-apps. It's also pushing back against Ant Group's 100M-user tap-to-pay feature. Longer-term, Tencent's AI ambitions rest on turning its ecosystem into a gateway for agentic tools that do more than chat they act. But the real story here isn't flashy AI demos. It's about Tencent playing patient offense while others sprint. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
CNA
5 days ago
- Business
- CNA
Tencent says US AI chip import situation unclear as governments negotiate
BEIJING :Chinese tech giant Tencent said on Wednesday it lacks clarity on U.S. AI chip imports as Beijing and Washington continue negotiations, though the company maintains it has sufficient inventory for its AI operations. "We don't really have a definitive answer on the import situation yet. There are a lot of discussions between the two governments. We are waiting to see what exactly comes out of that," Tencent President Martin Lau said during a post-earnings call. The comments come amid ongoing tensions over advanced semiconductor trade between the world's two largest economies. Nvidia's H20 chips, designed specifically for the Chinese market, have been at the center of recent regulatory scrutiny from both governments over security concerns. Lau said the uncertainty would not constrain Tencent's AI ambitions, noting the company has adequate chip supplies for AI model training and multiple deployment options for AI services. The Shenzhen-based company reported strong second-quarter results, with revenue rising 15 per cent to 184.5 billion yuan ($25.7 billion), beating analyst estimates of 178.5 billion yuan according to LSEG data. Gaming remained a key growth driver, with domestic revenue rising 17 per cent to 40.4 billion yuan and international revenue climbing 35 per cent to 18.8 billion yuan. Marketing services revenue increased 20 per cent year-on-year to 35.8 billion yuan, bolstered by the use of AI to enhance the targeting of adverts. Net profit for the quarter reached 55.6 billion yuan, surpassing analyst expectations of 52.3 billion yuan, LSEG data showed. Tencent has accelerated AI investments over the past two years, though capital expenditure has moderated recently. After spending 36.6 billion yuan in the fourth quarter of 2024 and 27.5 billion yuan in the first quarter, its capex fell to 19.1 billion yuan in the second quarter. Lau signaled a more measured approach going forward as the company seeks sustainable monetization from its AI initiatives and to "spend smartly". The company has developed its own large language model, Hunyuan, launching the latest "Turbo S" version in February. But Tencent has also embraced third-party models, notably integrating DeepSeek's technology across its platforms including WeChat, which has over 1 billion monthly active users. ($1 = 7.1756 Chinese yuan renminbi)
Reuters
5 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Tencent says US AI chip import situation unclear as governments negotiate
BEIJING, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Chinese tech giant Tencent ( opens new tab said on Wednesday it lacks clarity on U.S. AI chip imports as Beijing and Washington continue negotiations, though the company maintains it has sufficient inventory for its AI operations. "We don't really have a definitive answer on the import situation yet. There are a lot of discussions between the two governments. We are waiting to see what exactly comes out of that," Tencent President Martin Lau said during a post-earnings call. The comments come amid ongoing tensions over advanced semiconductor trade between the world's two largest economies. Nvidia(NVDA.O), opens new tab's H20 chips, designed specifically for the Chinese market, have been at the center of recent regulatory scrutiny from both governments over security concerns. Lau said the uncertainty would not constrain Tencent's AI ambitions, noting the company has adequate chip supplies for AI model training and multiple deployment options for AI services. The Shenzhen-based company reported strong second-quarter results, with revenue rising 15% to 184.5 billion yuan ($25.7 billion), beating analyst estimates of 178.5 billion yuan according to LSEG data. Gaming remained a key growth driver, with domestic revenue rising 17% to 40.4 billion yuan and international revenue climbing 35% to 18.8 billion yuan. Marketing services revenue increased 20% year-on-year to 35.8 billion yuan, bolstered by the use of AI to enhance the targeting of adverts. Net profit for the quarter reached 55.6 billion yuan, surpassing analyst expectations of 52.3 billion yuan, LSEG data showed. Tencent has accelerated AI investments over the past two years, though capital expenditure has moderated recently. After spending 36.6 billion yuan in the fourth quarter of 2024 and 27.5 billion yuan in the first quarter, its capex fell to 19.1 billion yuan in the second quarter. Lau signaled a more measured approach going forward as the company seeks sustainable monetization from its AI initiatives and to "spend smartly". The company has developed its own large language model, Hunyuan, launching the latest "Turbo S" version in February. But Tencent has also embraced third-party models, notably integrating DeepSeek's technology across its platforms including WeChat, which has over 1 billion monthly active users. ($1 = 7.1756 Chinese yuan renminbi)
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tencent says it has enough high-end chips to train AI for 'generations' even if the US cuts it off
Tencent's president Martin Lau says company has a "pretty strong stockpile of chips." Last month, Nvidia said the Trump administration imposed new chip export restrictions to China. Lau said Tencent has enough chips to train its AI models "for a few more generations going forward." The Chinese tech giant Tencent said it has a "pretty strong stockpile of chips" to tide it through America's chip sale restrictions. The company's president, Martin Lau, was speaking to investors during an earnings call on Wednesday when he was asked how Tencent would deal with US chip restrictions. Lau said "it's a very dynamic situation" that Tencent is managing, and it's trying to "figure out the right solution" to make sure its AI strategy "can still be executed." Lau told investors that Tencent can rely on a "pretty strong stockpile of chips that we acquired previously." Lau said the chips will be deployed to projects that can "generate immediate returns for us," such as in Tencent's advertising business. When it comes to training Tencent's large language models, Lau said the company will not need a large number of chips to improve its performance. This is because companies are starting to move away from the scaling law "which required continuous expansion of the training cluster," Lau said. "And now we can see even with a smaller cluster, you can actually achieve very good training results. And there's a lot of potential that we can get on the post-training side which do not necessarily meet very large clusters," Lau said. "So that actually helps us to look at our existing inventory of high-end chips and say we should have enough high-end chips to continue our training of models for a few more generations going forward," Lau added. Last month, Nvidia told investors in a regulatory filing that the Trump administration will be imposing new export licensing restrictions for chips being sold to China and other countries. The chip giant said it would incur a charge of up to $5.5 billion in inventory, purchase commitments, and reserves for its H20 chip in the first quarter, which ended on April 27. Nvidia designed the H20 chip based on the Biden administration's chip export restrictions. Analysts, however, have said the Trump administration's new restrictions will not slow down China's progress in AI. "Banning the H20 would make no sense as its performance is already well below Chinese alternatives; a ban would simply hand the Chinese AI market completely over to Huawei," Bernstein analysts wrote in a note to investors on April 23. Tencent did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. Read the original article on Business Insider Sign in to access your portfolio
