Tencent Holdings Ltd. ( zh, s=腾讯, p=Téngxùn) is a Chinese
multinational technology
conglomerate and
holding company
A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the Security (finance), securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own Share ...
headquartered in
Shenzhen
Shenzhen is a prefecture-level city in the province of Guangdong, China. A Special economic zones of China, special economic zone, it is located on the east bank of the Pearl River (China), Pearl River estuary on the central coast of Guangdong ...
. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the world's largest company in the
video game industry
The video game industry is the tertiary industry, tertiary and quaternary industry, quaternary sectors of the entertainment industry that specialize in the video game development, development, marketing, distribution (marketing), distribution, ...
based on its equity investments.
Founded in 1998, its subsidiaries globally market various
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
-related services and products, including in entertainment,
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
, and other technology.
Its twin-skyscraper headquarters,
Tencent Seafront Towers (also known as Tencent Binhai Mansion) are based in the
Nanshan District of Shenzhen. In December 2023, architect Büro Ole Scheeren unveiled the latest helix-inspired design of Tencent's new global headquarters in Shenzhen. Known as Tencent Helix, it will accommodate more than 23,000 employees across nearly 500,000 square meters.
Tencent is the world's largest
video game vendor, as well as one of the
largest companies in the world by market capitalization. It is among the largest
social media
Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...
,
venture capital
Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...
, and
investment corporations. Its services include social networks, music, web portals,
e-commerce
E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...
, mobile games, internet services, payment systems, smartphones, and multiplayer online games.
It operates the
instant messengers
Tencent QQ and
WeChat, along with the news site QQ.com. The company surpassed a market value of US$500 billion in 2018, becoming the first Asian technology company to cross this valuation mark.
It has since then emerged as the most valuable publicly traded company in China, and is the world's tenth most valuable company by market value as of February 2022.
In 2015, 2018, and 2020, the company was ranked by
Boston Consulting Group
Boston Consulting Group, Inc. (BCG) is an American global management consulting firm founded in 1963 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the "Big Three (management consultancies), Big Three" (or MBB, the world's three large ...
and ''
Fast Company
''Fast Company'' is an American business magazine published monthly in print and online, focusing on technology, business, and design. It releases six print issues annually.
History
''Fast Company'' was founded in November 1995 by Alan Webb ...
'' among the 50 most innovative companies worldwide. Tencent has
stakes in over 600 companies, and began focusing on tech start-ups in Asia in 2017.
TechCrunch
TechCrunch is an American global online newspaper focusing on topics regarding high tech, high-tech and Startup company, startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare.
I ...
characterized Tencent's investment strategy as letting its portfolio startups operate autonomously. Tencent's valuation approached US$1 trillion in January 2021 before it plummeted. Tencent Holdings was ranked 35th on the 2023
''Forbes'' Global 2000 list.
History
1998–2010: Founding and growth
Tencent was founded by
Pony Ma,
Zhang Zhidong, Xu Chenye,
Charles Chen and Zeng Liqing in November 1998
[Investing in China: The Emerging Venture Capital Industry](_blank)
Jonsson Yinya Li, ''Google Book Search'' as Tencent
Inc,
[Tencent](_blank)
Tencent official site in the
Cayman Islands
The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory, and the largest by population. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located so ...
.
[2008 Annual Report](_blank)
Tencent Official Site The name "Tencent" is based on its Chinese name Tengxun ( zh, links=no, s=腾讯), which incorporates part of
Pony Ma's Chinese name (
Ma Huateng; 马化「腾」) and literally means "galloping fast information". Initial funding was provided to it by
venture capital
Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...
ists.
[Biographical Dictionary of New Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders, pp. 111–112](_blank)
Ilan Alon and Wenxian Zhang. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009. Google Book Search. In February 1999, Tencent's messenger product
OICQ was released.
Shortly after, Tencent had the client's name changed to QQ; this was said to be due to a lawsuit threat from
ICQ and its owner
AOL. The company remained unprofitable for the first three years.
South African media company
Naspers purchased a 46.5% share of Tencent in 2001. As of 2023, it owns 26.16% through
Prosus, which also owns a stake in Tencent's sister companies, such as
OLX,
VK,
Trip.com Group,
Delivery Hero,
Bykea,
Meesho,
Stack Overflow
In software, a stack overflow occurs if the call stack pointer exceeds the stack bound. The call stack may consist of a limited amount of address space, often determined at the start of the program. The size of the call stack depends on many fa ...
,
Udemy,
Codecademy,
Brainly and
PayU.
Tencent Holding Ltd was listed on the
Hong Kong Stock Exchange
The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (, SEHK, also known as Hong Kong Stock Exchange) is a stock exchange based in Hong Kong. It is one of the largest stock exchanges in Asia and the List of major stock exchanges, 9th largest globally by market ...
on 16 June 2004,
and it was added as a
Hang Seng Index Constituent Stock in 2008.
The company originally derived income solely from advertising and premium users of QQ, who pay monthly fees to receive extras.
By 2005, charging for use of QQ mobile, its cellular
value-added service, and
licensing
A license (American English) or licence ( Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit).
A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another par ...
its penguin character, which could be found on snack food and clothing,
had also become income generators.
By 2008, Tencent was seeing profit growth from the sale of
virtual goods
Virtual goods are non-physical objects and money purchased for use in online communities or online games. Digital goods, on the other hand, may be a broader category including digital books, music, and movies. Virtual goods are intangible by def ...
.
In June 2007, Tencent established its charity foundation, becoming the first Chinese internet company to do so.
While Tencent's services have included online gaming since 2004, around 2007/2008, it rapidly increased its offerings by licensing games.
While at least two, ''
Crossfire'' and ''
Dungeon Fighter Online
''Dungeon Fighter Online'', known in South Korea as ''Dungeon & Fighter'', is a multiplayer beat 'em up action role-playing game, developed and published for personal computers by Neople, a South Korean subsidiary of Nexon, and originally publi ...
'', were originally produced by South Korean game developers, Tencent now makes its own games.
On 21 January 2011, Tencent launched
Weixin (), a
social media
Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...
app. Now branded as WeChat, the app is one of the "super apps", due to its wide range of functions and platforms, and its over 1 billion monthly active users.
2011–2014: Early investments
On 18 February 2011, Tencent acquired a majority of equity interest (92.78%)
[Tencent Interim Report 2011](_blank)
Tencent Official Site, Retrieved 22 February 2014. in
Riot Games, developer of
League of Legends
''League of Legends'' (''LoL'', commonly referred to as ''League'', is a multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by ''Defense of the Ancients'', a Mod (video games), custom map for ''Warcraf ...
, for about US$230 million. Tencent had already held 22.34% of the equity interest out of a previous investment in 2008. On 16 December 2015, Riot Games sold its remaining equity to Tencent. Tencent acquired a minority stake in
Epic Games
Epic Games, Inc. is an American Video game developer, video game and software development, software developer and video game publisher, publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney (game developer), Tim Sween ...
, developer of franchises like ''
Fortnite'', ''
Unreal'', ''
Gears of War'' and ''
Infinity Blade'', in June 2012. That year, Tencent acquired ZAM Network, parent of
Wowhead and other websites, from
Brock Pierce.
Tencent in 2013 increased its stake in
Kingsoft
Kingsoft Corporation () is a Chinese software company based in Beijing. Kingsoft operates four subsidiaries: Seasun for video game development, Cheetah Mobile for mobile internet apps, Kingsoft Cloud for cloud storage platforms, and Kingsoft O ...
Network Technology, a subsidiary of Kingsoft Corporation, to 18%. Tencent previously had a 15.68% stake in the company and raised the stake through a US$46.98 million investment. Tencent took part in
Activision Blizzard
Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California. Activision Blizzard currently includes three operating units: Activision, Blizzard Entertainment and King (company), King.
Founded in July 2 ...
splitting from
Vivendi as a passive investor in 2013
[Activision buys itself back from Vivendi for $8 billion](_blank)
joystiq.com, Retrieved 28 February 2014. and now owns less than 4.9% of the shares as of 2017. On 17 September 2013, it was announced that Tencent had invested $448 million for a minority share in Chinese search engine
Sogou.com, the subsidiary of
Sohu, Inc.
On 15 January 2014, Tencent said it would invest HKD 1.5 billion (US$193.45 million) in logistics and warehouse firm China South City Holdings Ltd to develop its e-commerce and logistics business. On 27 February 2014, Tencent purchased a 20% stake in restaurant ratings and group-buying website Dianping for $400 million. On 10 March 2014, Tencent bought a 15% stake in Chinese e-commerce website
JD.com Inc. by paying cash and handing over its e-commerce businesses Paipai, QQ Wanggou and a stake in Yixun to JD.com to build a stronger competitor to
Alibaba Group.
On 22 May 2014, JD.com got listed on NASDAQ and Tencent expanded its stake in the company to 17.43% on a fully diluted basis by investing an additional US$1,325 million. On 27 March 2014, it was announced that Tencent had agreed to pay about $500 million for a 28 per cent stake in South Korea's CJ Games. On 27 June 2014, Tencent announced that it had agreed to buy a 19.9 per cent stake in Chinese e-commerce website 58.com (WUBA) Inc. for $736 million. On 17 April 2015, Tencent announced it bought an additional $400 million worth of shares, rising its stake in the company to about 25%. On 16 October 2014, via its wholly held subsidiary Hongze Lake Investment Ltd, Tencent announced that it had bought a 7% stake in lottery technology firm China LotSynergy Holdings Ltd for HKD 445.5 million (US$57.4 million).
On 23 October 2014, Tencent pitched in $145 million for a 10 per cent stake in Koudai Gouwu, a Chinese mobile shopping portal. In November 2014, the company announced a deal with
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
which would give it exclusive rights for distribution in China. On 9 December 2014, Chinese taxi-hailing app Didi Dache announced that it had raised more than $700 million in a funding round led by Tencent and Singaporean state investment firm Temasek Holdings. On 29 December 2014, Tencent launched the website for
WeBank (China), China's first online-only bank. Trials for the service commenced on 18 January 2015.
In 2014, Tencent sued its major competitor
NetEase
NetEase, Inc. () is a Chinese Internet technology company founded by Ding Lei in June 1997. It provides online services with content, community, communications, and commerce. The company develops and operates online PC and mobile games, adverti ...
alleging
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...
infringement.
Tencent used its leverage from the suit to convince NetEase to sublicense music rights from Tencent.
The sub-licensing arrangement that resulted then became a model used by other online music platforms in China.
2015–2020: Continued investments

On 30 January 2015, Tencent announced that it had signed a US$700 million deal with the
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...
to stream American basketball games in China. Later that year, Chinese automaker
BYD became the chief corporate sponsor for Tencent's NBA broadcasts. On 21 June 2016 Tencent announced a deal to acquire 84.3% of
Supercell, developer of
Clash of Clans
''Clash of Clans'' is a 2012 free-to-play mobile strategy video game developed and published by Supercell. The game was released for iOS platforms on 2 August 2012, and on Google Play for Android on 7 October 2013. Since 2016, an animated ...
, with US$8.6 billion. In July 2016, Tencent acquired a majority stake in China Music Corporation.
Private enterprises in China are required to have an in-firm committee or branch of the
Chinese Communist Party
The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...
(CCP) if three or more CCP members are among their employees.
In 2016, Tencent's CCP branch was recognized as one of the one hundred best such branches in the country.
It provides communications and education platforms including a CCP activity hall, WeChat channel, and an intranet for CCP members where they can take classes related to government and party policies.
The Tencent Party Member Activity Center has a dedicated CCP member activity area of more than 6,000 square meters. More than 1 million yuan is allocated for CCP activities per year.
In 2016, Tencent, together with
Foxconn
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. (), Trade name, doing business as Hon Hai Technology Group () in Taiwan, Foxconn Technology Group () in China, and Foxconn () internationally, is a Taiwanese multinational corporation, multinational electron ...
and luxury-car dealer Harmony New Energy Auto founded
Future Mobility, a car startup (now defunct) that aimed to sell all-electric fully autonomous premium cars. On 28 March 2017,
Tesla, Inc. announced Tencent had purchased a 5% stake in Tesla for US$1.78 billion, the automotive control systems of which it subsequently successfully performed penetration-testing until 2019.
In a "direct challenge to Chinese search engine
Baidu," in May 2017, Tencent entered news feed and search functions for its
WeChat app, which the ''Financial Times'' reported was used by 770 million people at the time.
In May 2017, Tencent surpassed
Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company with a significant global presence. The company operates in 35 countries and serves over 70 million customers worldwide. It is a systemically important fi ...
to enter the world's top 10 most valuable companies. Tencent has also entered an agreement with the Wuhu City Council to build the world's first
eSports
Esports (), short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, played individually or as teams. ...
town in the city, which comprises an eSports theme park, eSports university, a cultural and creative park, an animation industrial park, creative block, tech entrepreneurial community and
Tencent Cloud's data center. The site will be used for the education and accommodation of future eSports players, as well as hosting national eSports events and serving as a hub for Tencent's game development. Aside from Wuhu, another eSports theme park is planned in
Chengdu
Chengdu; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ; Chinese postal romanization, previously Romanization of Chinese, romanized as Chengtu. is the capital city of the Chinese province of Sichuan. With a ...
.
In June 2017, Tencent became the 8th most valuable company in BrandZ's Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands, signalling its growing influence globally as well as the rise of Chinese brands. Alibaba overtook Tencent as Asia's most valuable company as its stocks surged after the company hosted its 2017 Investor's day. The company has also developed its own voice assistant Xiaowei, and was in the midst of discussion to acquire
Rovio Entertainment, the developer of
Angry Birds.
At the same time, Tencent introduced its mini-programs feature that allows smartphone users to access mobile apps across the globe on WeChat without downloading them.
In July 2017, Tencent bought a 9% share in
Frontier Developments, the creator of the ''
Elite: Dangerous'' and ''
Planet Coaster'' franchises; as well as developer for ''
Rollercoaster Tycoon'' 2 & 3. In August 2017, after Tencent announced the second quarter 2016 financial report, the stock price rose by 6.2% in the Hong Kong stock market, and the market value reached US$429 billion. Tencent became the second Asian company after Alibaba Group to surpass US$400 billion market cap. Tencent has also created an alliance to its own
AI self-driving program, similar to Baidu's Apollo Project, recruiting numerous industry players in the
automotive industry
The automotive industry comprises a wide range of company, companies and organizations involved in the design, Business development, development, manufacturing, marketing, selling, Maintenance, repairing, and Custom car, modification of motor ve ...
. It is also collaborating with
L'Oréal, the world's largest cosmetics company, to explore digital marketing under the Joint Business Partnership (JBP) agreement.
According to a report by Sina Tech in October 2017, Tencent employed over 7,000 members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that CCP members took a leading role in the development of WeChat. "With over 7,000 CCP members, accounting for approximately 23% of the total workforce, and more than 60% of whom are core technical personnel, the number of CCP members at Tencent is increasing by nearly a thousand every year. In Tencent, a leading internet company, CCP members are becoming the main driving force in shaping the company's development direction."
In November 2017, Tencent revealed that it had purchased a 12% stake in
Snap Inc. in the open market, with plans to help establish
Snapchat as a gaming platform.
Tencent remained the largest video game publisher in the world by revenue, and had a market capitalisation of around $475 billion. In the same month, Tencent announced that WeChat reached 980 million
monthly active users,
and said to be earmarking billions of dollars to amass a catalogue of user-generated content, in competition with
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
. The company became the first Asian company to cross US$500 billion valuation, surpassing Facebook to enter the top 5 list of the world's biggest firms.
In January 2018, Tencent and
The Lego Group, the world's largest toy company, teamed up to jointly develop online games and potentially a social network aimed at children. It also launched its first unmanned shop in
Shanghai
Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...
. Tencent led a US$5.2 billion investment in
Wanda Commercial, together with
JD.com,
Sunac and
Suning Group, to acquire shares in the conglomerate. Wanda Commercial was renamed Wanda Commercial Management Group. Tencent bought a 5% to 10% minority stake in
Skydance Media. On 23 January 2018, Tencent and
Carrefour reached strategic co-operation agreement in China.
On 15 August 2018, Tencent reported a profit decline in the second quarter of 2018, ending a growth streak of more than a decade, as investment gains slid and the government's scrutiny of the gaming business weighed on the company. Shares of Tencent fell 3% in morning trade in Hong Kong after the rare drop in quarterly profit was reported, extending a slide that has wiped nearly $50 billion in market value from the company in that week.
The sell-off dragged down many other Chinese internet stocks as well.
On 6 September 2018,
Luckin Coffee signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Tencent.
China's government designated Tencent as one of its "AI
champions" in 2018.
In November 2018, Tencent Charity Foundation donated RMB$1 billion to establish the Xplorer Prize award for outstanding young scientists in areas of basic science and cutting-edge technologies.
In October 2019, Tencent began sending out refunds to customers after cancelling the broadcast of NBA games in response to the
Houston Rockets
The Houston Rockets are an American professional basketball team based in Houston. The Rockets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Southwest Division (NBA), Southwest Division of the Western Conference (NBA) ...
general manager
Daryl Morey's social media comments in support of
protests in Hong Kong.
In May 2020, Tencent purchased the rights to create ''System Shock 3'' and any further sequels from
OtherSide Entertainment. On 29 June 2020, Tencent acquired the video-on-demand service
iflix in
Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur (KL), officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, is the capital city and a Federal Territories of Malaysia, federal territory of Malaysia. It is the largest city in the country, covering an area of with a census population ...
,
Malaysia
Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...
. In September 2020, Tencent picked Singapore as its hub in Asia, joining rivals
ByteDance and Alibaba in the race to reinforce their presence closer to home after complications in India and the United States. Lazy Audio was acquired from Shenzhen Lanren Online Technology Co for 2.7 billion yuan in January 2021.
2021–present: Regulatory scrutiny
In July 2021, China's antitrust regulator formally blocked Tencent's plan to merge China's top two
video game streaming sites,
Huya Live and
DouYu, after it had failed to come up with sufficient remedies to meet the
SAMR's requirements on giving up exclusive rights. This comes after the company recently withdrew the merger application for antitrust review and refiled it after SAMR told the company it could not complete the review of the merger within 180 days since its first filing. Tencent's plan to take
search engine
A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...
Sogou private was approved by the SAMR. Tencent later announced too its intention to take DouYu private, in part due to the unsuccessful merger, but also due to lacklustre business performance and disagreements over strategy among company executives. Tencent is currently the largest stakeholder in DouYu with a 37% stake. On 17 December 2021, Tencent announced it had acquired Slamfire Inc. and its subsidiary
Turtle Rock Studios, the developer behind
Left 4 Dead and
Back 4 Blood.
In January 2022, reports emerged that Tencent was one of the major tech conglomerates to receive a fine from the SAMR for failing to report their merger and acquisition (M&A) deals in advance. According to
China's antitrust law, official approval is required before the completion of a M&A deal if the combined annual revenue of all entities involved is at least RMB 10 billion (US$1.57 billion), and at least two entities have at least RMB 400 million (US$62.7 million) in annual revenue. Of the 13 deals cited in total by the SAMR, each carried a fine of RMB 500,000 (US$78,700) and Tencent received a total fine of RMB 4.5 million (US$710,000) for its involvement in nine deals.
On 11 January 2022, it was announced that Tencent was in talks to acquire Xiaomi-backed
Black Shark, one of the largest gaming smartphone makers in China. The acquisition would have been Tencent's first in a hardware maker and would have overseen Black Shark's transition into a manufacturer of VR headsets to support Tencent's plans for its metaverse business in the future. Reports initially suggested that Black Shark would be acquired for RMB 2.7 billion (US$420 million), although Tencent walked away from the deal due to regulatory scrutiny of metaverse businesses in China.
In June 2022, Tencent posted its slowest revenue gain since going public in 2004, partly caused by a 15% decrease in advertising revenue. The decline was attributed to the pandemic and tighter regulations imposed by the Chinese government.
In September 2022, Tencent acquired a 49.9% stake and 5% voting rights in Guillemot Brothers Limited,
Ubisoft
Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include '' Anno'', '' Assassin's Creed'', ' ...
's parent company. On 16 September 2022, Tencent took a minority stake in Mordhau studio Triternion.
In November 2022, Tencent announced that it would divest the majority of its US$20.3 billion stake in
Meituan through a dividend distribution to shareholders, in part due to China's earlier regulatory crackdown on tech giants. In January 2023,
OpenSecrets reported that Tencent spent over $6.3 million lobbying the U.S. federal government after coming under greater regulatory scrutiny in 2020. By January 2023, Tencent had sold its share in Tesla.
Majority owned subsidiary China Literature acquired Tencent Animation and Comics in December 2023.
On 22 December 2023, the Chinese government's regulations to curb online gaming cost Tencent $46 Billion in Market Capitalisation. Later, on 27 December 2023, the first of trading after the Chinese government vowed to make improvements to the proposed gaming rules, the firm's stock rose by 5%.
Also in December 2023, Tencent accelerated the pace of
buybacks, increasing the pace of daily purchases to about
HK$1 billion (with an average of HK$375 million per day) and made a record HK$10 billion
share purchase.
In March 2024, the firm uploaded its revenue report for the 4th quarter of the year 2023, recording a surprising 7% rise in the fourth-quarter revenue, slightly missing the expected mark.
In December 2024,
Apple
An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
decided to have talks with Tencent and TikTok owner
ByteDance for integrating their artificial intelligence models into iPhones that are sold in China. In 2025 Tencent released an AI 3D model generator, Hunyuan3D.
On 7 January 2025, Tencent was added to a watchlist of companies allegedly working with China's military, along with
CATL.
In March 2025, Tencent released Hunyuan T1, a
reasoning language model based on the Transformer-Mamba architecture.
Finances
The key trends for Tencent are (as of the financial year ending December 31):
Products and services
Social media
Launched in February 1999,
Tencent QQ is Tencent's first and most notable product, QQ is one of the most popular
instant messaging
Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of synchronous computer-mediated communication involving the immediate ( real-time) transmission of messages between two or more parties over the Internet or another computer network. Originally involv ...
platforms in its home market.
As of 31 December 2010, there were 647.6 million active Tencent QQ IM user accounts,
making Tencent QQ the world's largest online community at the time. The number of QQ accounts connected simultaneously has, at times, exceeded 100 million. While the IM service itself is free, a fee was being charged for mobile messaging as of 2006.
Tencent also created QQ International, which is an English version of QQ that allows communication with mainland accounts; QQi is available for Windows and macOS. In 2005, Tencent launched
Qzone, a social networking/blogging service integrated within QQ. Qzone has become one of the largest social networking services in China, with a user base of 645 million in 2014.
On 10 April 2010, Tencent launched
Tencent Weibo, a now defunct
microblogging
Microblogging is a form of blogging using short posts without titles known as microposts or status updates. Microblogs "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links", which may be the ...
service.
WeChat is a mobile app with functions such as voice- and text messaging,
mobile payment, and a friends-only social network called ''
Moments''. It is the most popular social mobile application in China and some overseas Chinese communities, for instance,
Malaysia
Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...
. As of 2017, WeChat has been unsuccessful in penetrating major international markets outside of China.
Entertainment
Video games

Tencent publishes video games via its Tencent Games division of Tencent Interactive Entertainment. It has five internal studio groups under it:
TiMi Studio Group,
LightSpeed Studios, Aurora Studio Group, Morefun Studio and Next Studio.
Outside of companies subsidiary of its game division, Tencent as a whole has many major and minor investments in domestic and, since the 2010s, foreign game companies.
Foreign studio assets
Other notable investments include
Discord (),
Roblox Corporation (), Lockwood Publishing (),
PlatinumGames (), Aiming (),
Novarama (), Triternion () Riffraff Games (), Offworld Industries (),
Bohemia Interactive (), Payload Studios (),
Playtonic Games (),
Voodoo (August 2020) and Lighthouse Games (July 2023).
= Former foreign stakes
=
* Tencent had a 14.46% stake in
Glu Mobile before Glu was acquired by
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple Inc., Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry ...
in 2019.
* Tencent had invested in Playdots, which was acquired by
Take-Two Interactive
Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in New York City founded by Ryan Brant in September 1993.
The company owns three major Imprint (trade name), publishing labels, Rockstar Games, Zynga and 2K ...
in August 2020.
* Tencent invested in
Activision Blizzard
Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California. Activision Blizzard currently includes three operating units: Activision, Blizzard Entertainment and King (company), King.
Founded in July 2 ...
as a minority investor with 5% in 2013, when the holding company bought itself from the
Vivendi conglomerate which was part of it since 2008.
* Tencent's
Sumo Group subsidiary wholly owned
Pipeworks Studios until it was sold to
Jagex for an undisclosed sum in July 2022.
= Domestic investments
=
* 20% ownership of Chinese company Wangyuan Shengtang, which publishes, among others, the
GuJian franchise (2021). Stake increased to 94% in 2024.
* 51.4% of Chinese company
Kuro Games which publishes
Wuthering Waves. (2024)
* 18.6% ownership of Chinese company iDreamSky, which mainly develops and publishes
mobile games for the Chinese market.
* 5% ownership of Chinese company Century Huatong, which operates games developed by
FunPlus. Tencent became a shareholder through an investment in Century Huatong's subsidiary
Shengqu Games.
* 5% ownership of Chinese company
Game Science, responsible for the development of ''
Black Myth: Wukong'' (2021).
* 19.5% ownership of Chinese company Bluepoch, responsible for
Reverse: 1999(2023).
Television and cinema
In April 2009, Tencent launched iTQQ, a "smart interactive television service" in a joint effort with
TCL.
In 2015, Tencent launched
Tencent Pictures ( zh, links=no, s=腾讯影业), a
film distributor
A film distributor is a person responsible for the marketing of a film. The distribution company may be the same as, or different from, the production company. Distribution deals are an important part of financing a film.
The distributor may set ...
and a
production company
A production company, production house or production studio is a studio that creates works in the fields of performing arts, new media art, film, television show, television, radio, comics, interactive arts, video games, websites, music, and video ...
that creates and distributes films based on
book
A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, ...
s,
comic book
A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...
s,
animated series
An animated series, or a cartoon series, is a set of Animation, animated films with a common title, usually related to one another. These episodes typically share the same main heroes, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series ...
and
video game
A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...
s.
In the same year, Tencent launched Tencent Penguin Pictures ( zh, links=no, s=腾讯企鹅影视) a production unit focusing on online dramas and minor investments in feature films. It is under the Online Media Business Unit at Tencent and works closely with
Tencent Video.
Comics
On 21 March 2012, Tencent launched
Tencent Comic, and would later become China's largest online animation platform.
In September 2017, Tencent has announced plans to introduce
Chinese online comics to every market around the world, with the first being
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...
. It will be working with
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
-based digital publisher
Tapas Media, a partnership that will see English-language releases of several popular online Chinese titles.
Music
In 2014, Tencent established exclusive in-China distribution agreements with several large music producers, including
Sony
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...
,
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group Corp., commonly abbreviated as WMG, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational entertainment and record label Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the "Record label#M ...
and
YG Entertainment and in 2017 it signed a deal with
Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as Universal Music Group or Universal Music) is a Netherlands, Dutch–United States, American multinational Music industry, music corporation under Law of the Netherlands, ...
to stream its music in China. It also entered a partnership with Alibaba Group on music-streaming rights sharing. The deal aims to protect licensed streaming services offering copyrighted content of the
music industry
The music industry are individuals and organizations that earn money by Songwriter, writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling Sound recording and reproduction, recorded music and sheet music, presenting live music, concerts, ...
, encouraging more high-quality and original music, as well as developing
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
's fast-growing streaming market. Alibaba will gain the rights to stream music from international labels, which already have exclusive deals with Tencent, in return for offering reciprocal rights to its catalogue of
Chinese and
Japanese music.
In December 2017, Tencent's music arm,
Tencent Music
Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME; ) is a company that develops music streaming services for the Chinese market. Tencent Music's apps include QQ Music, KuGou, Kuwo, and WeSing; which have more than 800 million active users and 120 million ...
Entertainment (TME), and
Spotify
Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...
agreed to swap a 10% stake in each other's music businesses, forming an alliance in the music industry which
Martin Lau (president of Tencent) described as a "strategic collaboration".
In October 2019, Tencent Music reached a streaming music distribution agreement with
CD Baby
CD Baby, Inc. is a Portland, Oregon based online distributor of independent music. The company was described as an "anti-label" by its parent company's Chief Operating Officer Tracy Maddux. It was established in 1998 and offered distribution fo ...
and
TuneCore to provide independent music artists who distribute music through CD Baby and TuneCore access to the Chinese music market through Tencent's music streaming services
QQ Music,
KuGou, and Kuwo.
In March 2020, Tencent acquired 10% of
Vivendi's stake in
Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as Universal Music Group or Universal Music) is a Netherlands, Dutch–United States, American multinational Music industry, music corporation under Law of the Netherlands, ...
, the world's largest music group. In addition, it was given the option to buy another 10% with the same conditions.
In June 2020, Tencent bought 1.6% of
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group Corp., commonly abbreviated as WMG, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational entertainment and record label Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the "Record label#M ...
's shares after WMG launched its IPO in the same month.
On May 27, 2025,
Hybe Corporation
Hybe Co., Ltd. (; stylized as Hybe Corporation; commonly known as simply Hybe) is a South Korean multinational entertainment company established in 2005 by Bang Si-hyuk as Big Hit Entertainment Co., Ltd.
The company operates as a record l ...
announced it would sell all of its shares in
SM Entertainment to
Tencent Music
Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME; ) is a company that develops music streaming services for the Chinese market. Tencent Music's apps include QQ Music, KuGou, Kuwo, and WeSing; which have more than 800 million active users and 120 million ...
.
Video streaming
In June 2011, Tencent launched
Tencent Video, a video streaming website. It also controls the live-streaming platform
Huya Live and has stakes in other major Chinese game live-streaming platform operators, including
DouYu,
Kuaishou
Kuaishou Technology ( zh, c=快手, l=quick hand) is a Chinese publicly traded partly state-owned holding company based in Haidian District, Beijing, that was founded in 2011 by Hua Su (宿华) and Cheng Yixiao (程一笑). The company, liste ...
and
Bilibili. In March 2020, Tencent started testing
Trovo Live, a live-streaming service for worldwide users. Since June 2020, it owns the Malaysian Video-on-demand service
Iflix.
Virtual reality
In late April 2017, Tencent announced it was preparing to launch its virtual reality headset that year.
E-commerce
In September 2005, Tencent launched PaiPai.com ( zh, s=拍拍, p=pāi pāi, c=, t=), a
C2C auction site.
In addition to PaiPai.com, Tencent launched TenPay, an online payment system similar to
PayPal
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support E-commerce payment system, online money transfers; it serves as an electronic alter ...
, which supports
B2B,
B2C
Direct-to-consumer (DTC or D2C) or business-to-consumer (B2C) is the business model of selling products directly to customers and thereby bypassing any third-party retailers, wholesalers, or middlemen. Direct-to-consumer sales are usually transa ...
, and
C2C payments.
[Products and Services, E-commerce](_blank)
Tencent Official Site TenPay was one of the first domestic non-bank payment providers to receive a regulatory license following 2010
People's Bank of China regulations that took non-bank third party payment providers out of a legal grey area.
In response to the dominance of the Chinese
e-commerce
E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...
market by Tencent competitor Alibaba Group, Tencent took great effort in its e-commerce platforms. On 10 March 2014, Tencent bought a 15 per cent stake in Chinese e-commerce website JD.com Inc. by paying cash and handing over its e-commerce businesses Paipai.com, QQ Wanggou, and a stake in Yixun to JD.com, as well as purchasing a stake in e-commerce website
58 Tongcheng.
In accordance to this agreement, JD.com would receive exclusive access to Tencent's WeChat and MobileQQ platforms.
In May 2014, JD became the first Chinese e-commerce company to be listed on the
NASDAQ
The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...
exchange, under its ticker 'JD'.
On 31 December 2015, JD announced that they will stop supporting services on Paipai.com after being unable to deal with issues involving fake goods, and had integrated the Paipai.com team within its other e-commerce platforms. In a 3-month transitional period, Paipai.com would be fully shut down by 1 April 2016. JD relaunched PaiPai.com as PaiPai Second Hand () to compete alongside 58 Tongcheng's Zhuanzhuan.com, both partially owned by Tencent, against Alibaba's Xianyu in the
second-hand e-commerce market.
Tencent was reported in 2017 to be working with
China's Central Bank to develop a central payments clearing platform for online payments.
On 31 December 2021, it was reported Tencent had bought a stake in the UK digital bank,
Monzo.
Utility software
In March 2006, Tencent launched its search engine
Soso.com (搜搜; to search).
[Products and Services > Online Media](_blank)
Tencent Official Site
cnreviews.com, 14 April 2008. On 1 October 2012, it was the 33rd most visited website in the world, 11th most visited in China, as well as the 8th most visited website in South Korea, according to
Alexa Internet. It was also a Chinese partner of
Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
, using
AdWords
Google Ads, formerly known as Google Adwords, is an online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers bid to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, and videos to web users. It can place ads in the res ...
.
[What Valley Companies Should Know about Tencent](_blank)
techcrunch.com, 20 June 2010. In September 2013, Tencent discontinued Soso.com after it invested in
Sogou and replaced Soso.com with Sogou Search as its main search engine.
In 2008, Tencent released a media player, available for free download, under the name
QQ Player. Tencent also launched Tencent Traveler, a web browser based on
Trident. It became the third most-visited browser in China in 2008.
[Products & Services > Instant Messaging Service](_blank)
Tencent Official Site
QQ Haiwai is Tencent's first venture into international real estate listings and information and is the result of a partnership with Chinese international real estate website Juwai.com. Haiwai was announced at Tencent's annual regional summit in Beijing on 21 December 2016.
In 2017, Tencent launched its own
credit score system called Tencent Credit, with a process similar to that of Sesame Credit, operated by its competitor, the Alibaba Group, through its subsidiary Ant Financial.
Healthcare and insurance
Tencent has created WeChat Intelligent Healthcare, Tencent Doctorwork, and
AI Medical Innovation System (AIMIS) Tencent Doctorwork has also merged with Trusted Doctors
Tencent officially commences operations of its first insurance agency platform, WeSure Internet Insurance Ltd. (WeSure), to work with domestic insurance companies such as
Ping An Insurance.
In August 2017, Tencent released AI Medical Innovation System (AIMIS) or Miying (觅影 in Chinese), which has two core competencies: AI medical imaging and AI-assisted diagnosis. AI Medical Innovation System (AIMIS) is capable of helping doctors screen for several diseases such as diabetic retinopathy, lung cancer and esophageal cancer through its AI-assisted medical image analysis. Its AI-assisted medical diagnosis engine allows doctors to identify and estimate the risk of more than 700 diseases, improving the accuracy and efficiency of their diagnosis. The system is undergoing clinical validation in more than 100 major Chinese hospitals. It has already helped doctors read more than 100 million medical images and served nearly one million patients. Tencent's data shows that recognition accuracy reaches 90% for esophageal cancer, 97% for diabetic retinopathy and 97.2% for colorectal cancer. In general, Chinese medical institutions and companies are taking a proactive attitude toward AI. Nearly 80% of hospitals and medical enterprises plan to carry out, or have already carried out, medical AI applications, and more than 75% of hospitals believe that these applications will become popular in the future.
During the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
, Tencent helped source 1.2 million protective masks for American medical staff combating the virus.
Data processing
On 27 March 2020, a co-innovation lab was launched by Tencent who will be in collaborations with
Huawei
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ("Huawei" sometimes stylized as "HUAWEI"; ; zh, c=华为, p= ) is a Chinese multinational corporationtechnology company in Longgang, Shenzhen, Longgang, Shenzhen, Guangdong. Its main product lines include teleco ...
in developing a
cloud-based
Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...
game platform by tapping into Huawei's Kunpeng processor's power to build Tencent's GameMatrix cloud game platform. Along with further exploration in the possibilities of artificial intelligence and augmented reality elements in game.
In October 2020, Tencent's AIMIS Image Cloud was introduced.
AIMIS Image Cloud was designed to help patients manage their medical images and give permission to medical professionals to access their exams and reports. The AIMIS platform supports full images on the cloud to reduce repeated exams. It can also connect medical institutions at all levels through cloud based Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS), allowing patients to take examinations in primary medical institutions and obtain expert diagnosis remotely. Doctors can conduct online consultations through Tencent real-time audio and video facilities when they encounter difficult cases and work collaboratively on images to communicate more efficiently.
On 26 May 2020, Tencent announced it planned to invest 500 billion yuan (US$70 billion) over the next five years in new digital infrastructure, a major hi-tech initiative that would bolster Beijing's efforts to drive economic recovery in the post-coronavirus era.
Accessibility
Tencent received the
Zero Project Award 2023 for innovative ICT solutions for persons with disabilities. Originating from Tencent's game development, MTGPA (Magic Tencent Game Performance Amelioration) Haptics is transmitting vibro-tactile signals to the user which support orientation and notification. Typical customers are persons with visual impairments or the elderly.
Connected to the Tencent Map app, MTGPA Haptics guides customers indoors and outdoors through long and short vibrations in case of deviations from the planned route.
Other
Tencent announced its WeCity project in 2019, through which it seeks to develop a
smart city solution for digital governance, urban management and decision-making, and industrial interconnections.
In June 2020, Tencent has unveiled plans for an urban development dubbed "Net City",
a 21-million-square-foot development, equivalent in size to Monaco, in Shenzhen. The development will be built on
reclaimed land.
It will prioritize pedestrians, green spaces and self-driving vehicles, corporate offices, schools, sports facilities, parks, retail space and apartments, according to the project's architect,
NBBJ.
At the end of June 2020, Tencent has increased its direct stake in Nio to 15.1% after acquiring more of the Chinese electric vehicle maker's New York-listed shares recently. Tencent spent $10 million to buy 1.68 million American Depositary Shares earlier in the month, according to Nio's latest filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Shenzhen-based social media and entertainment conglomerate also controls another 16% stake in Nio's ADSs through three of its units. Tencent was the second-largest Nio shareholder in terms of voting rights after Li Bin, founder of the automaker, who held 13.8% in shares but 47% voting rights, according to a March filing by the company.
As of 8 July, they bought another amount of shares increasing their stake in Nio to 16.3%.
Corporate governance

Tencent's largest shareholder is
Prosus (majority owned by
Naspers), which owns 25.6% of all shares
and hence is the
controlling shareholder. However,
Ma Huateng, co-founder of Tencent, still owns a significant stake (8.42%).
Tencent's headquarters is currently the
Tencent Binhai Mansion, also known as the Tencent Seafront Towers, which is located in
Shenzhen
Shenzhen is a prefecture-level city in the province of Guangdong, China. A Special economic zones of China, special economic zone, it is located on the east bank of the Pearl River (China), Pearl River estuary on the central coast of Guangdong ...
's
Nanshan District. In addition to its headquarters in Shenzhen, Tencent also has offices in
Beijing
Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
,
Shanghai
Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...
,
Chengdu
Chengdu; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ; Chinese postal romanization, previously Romanization of Chinese, romanized as Chengtu. is the capital city of the Chinese province of Sichuan. With a ...
, and
Guangzhou
Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...
.
Tencent has a unitary board consisting of Tencent co-founder,
CEO, and
chairman
The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...
Ma Huateng, also known as
Pony Ma, executive director and
President of Tencent Martin Lau, non-executive directors
Jacobus "Koos" Bekker and Charles Searle of
Naspers, and independent non-executive directors Li Dongsheng, Iain Bruce, Ian Stone, and Yang Siushun. Tencent's governance is aided by its Strategy Department, commonly known as SD, which provides business analytics for the corporation's various divisions.
Subsidiaries
Tencent has at least four
Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprises and nearly twenty subsidiaries.
Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.
A software development unit that has created, among others, Tencent Traveler and later versions of QQ IM,
[Tencent Holdings LTD](_blank)
Bloomberg as well as some
mobile software
A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a smartphone, phone, tablet computer, tablet, or smartwatch, watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop appli ...
.
[China Developers Bring Mobile Widgets to Market](_blank)
nokia.com, 2008. This subsidiary is located on the Southern District of Hi-Tech Park, Shenzhen.
It also holds a number of patents related to instant messaging and
massively multiplayer online game
A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players to interact in the same online game world. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent world, persistent open world, although t ...
gaming.
Shenzhen Yayue Technology
In 2023, an entity controlled by the state-owned
China Internet Investment Fund took a
golden share investment in Shenzhen Yayue Technology. The stock price of Tencent sank when news of the deal was published.
Research
In 2007, Tencent invested over RMB100 million in the establishment of the Tencent Research Institute, which became China's first research center dedicated to core Internet technologies. The campuses are located in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen.
In 2012, Tencent launched Tencent YouTu Lab, an AI research department that focuses on computer vision, including optical character recognition (OCR), image understanding, and generation.
In 2020, as part of Tencent's efforts to combat the COVID-19 and future pandemic, Tencent established an AI Joint Lab with respiratory disease expert
Zhong Nanshan to conduct research on disease screening, prevention, and outbreak warnings.
In 2023, Tencent debuted its large language model Hunyuan for enterprise use.
In 2023, Tencent announced its partnership with the
Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) to establish a Digital Seed Bank at the Tencent Science and Technology Museum.
Chinese government partnerships
The Chinese government views Tencent as one of its
national champion corporations.
For the occasion of the
19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party
19 (nineteen) is the natural number following 18 and preceding 20. It is a prime number.
Mathematics
Nineteen is the eighth prime number.
Number theory
19 forms a twin prime with 17, a cousin prime with 23, and a sexy prime with 13 ...
, Tencent released a mobile game titled "Clap for
Xi Jinping
Xi Jinping, pronounced (born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician who has been the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (China), chairman of the Central Military Commission ...
: An Awesome Speech", in which players have 19 seconds to generate as many claps as possible for the party leader.
In August 2019, it was reported that Tencent collaborated with the propaganda department of the
Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the ''
People's Daily
The ''People's Daily'' ( zh, s=人民日报, p=Rénmín Rìbào) is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It provides direct information on the policies and viewpoints of the CCP in multiple lan ...
'' to develop "patriotic games".
In a December 2020 article in ''
Foreign Policy
Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...
'', a former senior official of the
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
stated that the CIA concluded that Tencent received funding from the
Ministry of State Security early on in its foundation. This was said to be a "seed investment" that was provided "when they were trying to build out the
Great Firewall and the monitoring technology." Tencent denied this allegation.
In 2021, it was reported that Tencent and
Ant Group were working with the
People's Bank of China to develop a
Central bank digital currency.
In June 2022, Tencent partnered with
Shanghai United Media Group to launch a plan to develop domestic and foreign
influencers
A social media influencer, or simply influencer (also known as an online influencer), is a person who builds a grassroots online presence through engaging content such as photos, videos, and updates. This is done by using direct audience intera ...
.
Environmental
Tencent participates in many carbon reduction programs and partnerships.
Tencent's Global Carbon Neutral Technology Alliance shares carbon neutrality patents and technologies for free and includes competitors like Alibaba and Microsoft.
Tencent's CarbonX Program is a
business accelerator and digital capability program which aims to develop low-carbon technologies.
In December 2022, Tencent launched TanLIVE, a climate a co-developed platform which aims to bring together resources for climate change solutions in China.
Tencent participates in the Science Based Targets initiative launched by the UN Global Compact, which provides a platform for setting science-based net-zero targets.
In 2022, Tencent established a goal of making the company and its supply chain
carbon neutral.
Controversies
Allegations of copying
Many of Tencent's software and services share similarities to those of competitors, and to their The founder and
chairman
The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...
,
Huateng "Pony" Ma, famously said, "
ocopy is not evil." A former CEO and president of
SINA.com,
Wang Zhidong, said, "
Pony Ma is a notorious king of copying."
Jack Ma
Ma Yun (; born 10 September 1964), or more commonly referred as Jack Ma, is a Chinese businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder of the Jack Ma Foundation, and co-founder of Alibaba Group and Yunfeng Capital. As of May 2025, Ma's ne ...
of Alibaba Group stated, "The problem with Tencent is the lack of innovation; all of their products are copies."
In 1996, an Israeli company named
Mirabilis released one of the first stand alone instant messaging clients named
ICQ. Three years later, Tencent released a copied version of ICQ, naming it OICQ, which stands for Open ICQ.
After losing a lawsuit against
AOL, which bought ICQ in 1998, for violating ICQ's
intellectual property rights, Tencent released a new version of OICQ in December 2000 and rebranded it
QQ.
With its model of free-to-use and charging for customizing personal avatars, QQ hit 50 million users in its second year, 856 million users and at most 45.3 million synchronous users in 2008.
During early stages of company development and expansion, Tencent has been widely accused of stealing ideas from its competitors and creating counterfeit copies of their products.
Some of the criticisms aimed at Tencent in this regard are that QQ farm was a direct copy of
Happy Farm, QQ dance originated from
Audition Online, and that QQ speed featured gameplay highly similar to
Crazyracing Kartrider. In January 2023, Tencent's trailer for their new MMORPG, ''
Tarisland'', was said to resemble
Blizzard
A blizzard is a severe Winter storm, snowstorm characterized by strong sustained winds and low visibility, lasting for a prolonged period of time—typically at least three or four hours. A ground blizzard is a weather condition where snow th ...
's
World of Warcraft
''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a 2004 massively multiplayer online role-playing (MMORPG) video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment for Windows and Mac OS X. Set in the '' Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of War ...
.
Tencent's acquisitions
In general, Tencent does not seek to acquire controlling stakes when it invests in other companies.
It usually deems minority ownership sufficient to build connections and acquire technology.
In a partial effort to rebuild the reputation of Tencent lost from allegations of copying, Tencent adjusted its strategy by aggressively investing in the acquisition of other companies, rather than in the replication of them. By 2020, Tencent had invested in over 800 companies across the world.
During 2012 and 2019, Tencent has invested from minority stakes to majority stakes in world-wide-famous game companies such as
Riot Games,
Epic Games
Epic Games, Inc. is an American Video game developer, video game and software development, software developer and video game publisher, publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney (game developer), Tim Sween ...
,
Activision Blizzard
Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California. Activision Blizzard currently includes three operating units: Activision, Blizzard Entertainment and King (company), King.
Founded in July 2 ...
,
SuperCell, and
Bluehole. While aggressive acquisitions may benefit Tencent due to factors such as reduction in competition and monopolization, it may not benefit the acquired companies in terms of their growth and innovation. Colin Huang, founder of Pinduoduo, said "Tencent won't die when Pinduoduo dies, because it has tens of thousands of sons."
Security concerns
In 2015, security testing firms
AV-Comparatives,
AV-TEST and
Virus Bulletin jointly decided to remove Tencent from their software
whitelist
A whitelist or allowlist is a list or register of entities that are being provided a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. Entities on the list will be accepted, approved and/or recognized. Whitelisting is the reverse of ...
s. The Tencent products supplied for testing were found to contain optimisations that made the software appear less exploitable when benchmarked but actually provided greater scope for delivering exploits. Additionally, software settings were detrimental to end-users protection if used.
Qihoo was later also accused of cheating, while Tencent was accused of actively
gaming the anti-malware tests.
The
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and superv ...
added Tencent to its list of entities associated with the Chinese military in January 2025; such companies are either considered to be either controlled by the Chinese military or serve the growth of China's civil-military complex. The listing is primarily an advisory, having no direct impact, but nominally is considered a blacklisting. Tencent representatives said the listing was "clearly a mistake" and will have no impact on their business but plan to appeal the listing.
Major litigation
Since 2018, Tencent has been in litigation with
ByteDance.
ByteDance and its affiliates brought a series of
unfair competition
Anti-competitive practices are business or government practices that prevent or reduce competition in a market. Antitrust laws ensure businesses do not engage in competitive practices that harm other, usually smaller, businesses or consumers. ...
lawsuits against Tencent, alleging that Tencent was blocking their content.
As of at least early 2024, these lawsuits had not reached resolution, largely due to disputes about jurisdiction.
Tencent filed two lawsuits against ByteDance and its affiliates, alleging that they were using WeChat and QQ profiles without authorization and illegally crawling data from public WeChat accounts.
Tencent obtained an injunction barring ByteDance from this practice.
Censorship
Tencent's
WeChat platform has been accused of blocking
TikTok
TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...
videos and the censorship of politically sensitive content. In April 2018, TikTok sued Tencent and accused it of spreading false and damaging information on its WeChat platform, demanding
RMB 1 million in compensation and an apology. In June 2018, Tencent filed a lawsuit against
Toutiao and TikTok in a Beijing court, alleging they had repeatedly defamed Tencent with negative news and damaged its reputation, seeking a nominal sum of RMB 1 million in compensation and a public apology. In response, Toutiao filed a complaint the following day against Tencent for allegedly
unfair competition
Anti-competitive practices are business or government practices that prevent or reduce competition in a market. Antitrust laws ensure businesses do not engage in competitive practices that harm other, usually smaller, businesses or consumers. ...
and asking for RMB 90 million in economic losses.
However,
Tim Sweeney, the CEO and founder of
Epic Games
Epic Games, Inc. is an American Video game developer, video game and software development, software developer and video game publisher, publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney (game developer), Tim Sween ...
, maker of the popular game ''
Fortnite'', tweeted that his company would never follow suit and punish people for expressing their opinions, even though Tencent is a 40% stakeholder in Epic. In a statement, Sweeney said it would "never happen on
iswatch", and emphasized that Epic is an American company, implying that it would not compromise an ethos of free speech to curry favor with Chinese authorities in the pursuit of maximum profit.
Later in October 2019, Tencent announced it would stop broadcasting
Houston Rockets
The Houston Rockets are an American professional basketball team based in Houston. The Rockets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Southwest Division (NBA), Southwest Division of the Western Conference (NBA) ...
NBA games in China due to a tweet made by
Daryl Morey, general manager of the Rockets, that was supportive of protestors in the
2019–2020 Hong Kong protests. Although Morey's tweet was hastily deleted, news of it was quickly reported all around the world, and the NBA went on to spend months attempting damage control in China.
In December 2019, the Chinese government ordered Tencent to improve the firm's user data rules for its apps, which regulators regarded to be in violation of censorship rules.
In January 2021, a proposed class action lawsuit was filed in California against Tencent, alleging user censorship and surveillance via
WeChat.
In November 2022,
Sustainalytics downgraded Tencent to "non-compliant" with the
United Nations Global Compact
The United Nations Global Compact is a non-binding United Nations pact to get businesses and firms worldwide to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies, and to report on their implementation. The UN Global Compact is the world's ...
principles due to complicity with censorship.
2020 U.S. executive order on WeChat
On 6 August 2020, President
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
signed two
executive orders, one directed at TikTok and one at WeChat. The TikTok order dictated that within 45 days from its signing (20 September 2020) that it would ban transactions involving the TikTok app with ByteDance, effectively banning the TikTok app in the United States, under threat of penalty.
TikTok sued Trump over the executive order, which was later revoked under
Joe Biden
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who was the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice p ...
's
administration
Administration may refer to:
Management of organizations
* Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal: the process of dealing with or controlling things or people.
** Administrative assistant, traditionally known as a se ...
, causing the lawsuit to be dismissed in July 2021. The order for WeChat contained the same information but targeting the WeChat app and related transactions for Tencent. In the case of ByteDance, the order would be canceled should an American company acquire it, which
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
had been openly spoken of, but there are unlikely any immediate buyers for Tencent in the U.S. ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' reporter Sam Dean affirmed from the White House that this does not affect other facets of Tencent's ownerships in American companies such as with its video game companies.
Antitrust concerns
In December 2024, the
U.S. Department of Justice announced that Tencent had removed two directors from Epic Games'
board of directors
A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency.
The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...
and relinquished its unilateral right to appoint directors or observers to Epic's board. This action followed concerns that
interlocking directorates between the Epic and Tencent boards violated
U.S. antitrust law under
Section 8 of the Clayton Act.
See also
*
Foxmail
*
Pengyou
*
QQ browser
*
Qzone
*
Sogou
*
Tencent Maps
References
External links
*
*
{{authority control
Chinese brands
Chinese companies established in 1998
Civilian-run enterprises of China
Companies based in Shenzhen
Companies in the Hang Seng Index
Companies in the S&P Asia 50
Companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange
Companies' terms of service
Holding companies established in 1998
Holding companies of China
Investment companies of China
Multinational companies headquartered in China
Offshore companies of the Cayman Islands
Online companies of China
Software companies of China
Video game companies established in 1998
Video game companies of China
Video game development companies
Video game publishers
2004 initial public offerings
Internet properties established in 1998
Nanshan District, Shenzhen
FTP clients
Web portals
Windows web browsers
Confidence tricks