BEIJING (Reuters) -Tencent Holdings, China’s biggest technology company by market capitalisation, posted a 13% rise in first-quarter revenue on Wednesday, boosted by growth in gaming and AI-enhanced advertising.
Tencent, also the world’s largest video game company and operator of the WeChat messaging platform, reported revenue of 180 billion yuan ($24.97 billion) for the quarter ended March 31.
The results exceeded the 174.6 billion yuan average estimate from analysts polled by LSEG.
Net profit for the quarter was 47.8 billion yuan, compared with analyst expectations of 52.2 billion yuan, LSEG data showed.
The revenue growth was led by robust performance in the gaming segment, as the company benefited from regulatory easing in China’s gaming sector following stringent restrictions in previous years.
For the quarter, domestic gaming revenue rose by 24% to 42.9 billion yuan, and international gaming revenue climbed 23% to 16.6 billion yuan.
Titles that drove the growth included “Dungeon & Fighter Mobile”, launched in May 2024, and shooting game “Delta Force,” which debuted in September.
Tencent has increased its AI investments, and in March said it would allocate a low double-digit percentage of 2025 revenue to capital expenditure, primarily for AI development.
This follows the company’s 39 billion yuan AI-focused spending in the fourth quarter of 2024.
The company has developed its own proprietary large language model Hunyuan, and in March made public a version called T1.
It has also been among the most open of its peers to adopting third-party technology.
Tencent became the first major Chinese tech company to integrate technology from DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup that gained prominence early this year with its release of AI models that rival Western counterparts at lower development costs.
The DeepSeek integration has been rolled out across Tencent’s core products, including WeChat – the company’s flagship messaging and payment platform with over 1 billion active users – and Yuanbao, Tencent’s own AI assistant.
Revenues from marketing services for the quarter were 17.7 billion, up 22% year-on-year, partly because of robust AI-driven adtech upgrades whose benefits include more targeted advertising.
The company’s FinTech and Business Services segment, which includes consumer loans, wealth management and cloud services, posted revenue of 27.6 billion yuan, a 16% increase.
($1 = 7.2086 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Liam Mo and Brenda Goh; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Barbara Lewis)
