政府新闻
腾讯股价首次下跌后回涨 2022-08-19
Tencent Gains After Vowing Return to Growth as Quarterly Sales Fall for First Time
Shares of Tencent Holdings, China’s most valuable company, rose after the internet and gaming giant promised a return to revenue growth in the wake of its first decline in quarterly sales.
Tencent [HKG: 0700] closed 3.1 percent higher today at HKD312.60 (USD39.85), giving the Shenzhen-based company a market capitalization of HKD3 trillion (USD382 billion).
“Our revenue conditions have become difficult, and financial performance was under pressure over the last few quarters,” President Martin Lau said on a conference call after the firm released its second-quarter earnings yesterday. But “we are positioned to enhance and broaden our revenue growth when the macro environment improves,” he added.
In the three months ended June 30, revenue fell 3 percent from a year earlier to CNY134 billion (USD19.7 billion), mainly because of a drop in advertising and gaming income. The market had expected a decline. Net profit fell for a fourth consecutive quarter, sinking 56 percent to CNY18.6 billion (USD2.74 billion).
Tencent has taken steps to control costs, including closing unprofitable businesses and letting go staff. “We actively exited non-core businesses, tightened our marketing spending, and trimmed operating expenses,” founder and Chairman Pony Ma said.
Tencent closed non-core or redundant businesses in online education, e-commerce, and game livestreaming; rationalized under-performing businesses, including loss-making digital content services and sub-scale social media products; cut selling and marketing expenses by 21 percent; and migrated all domestic in-house services to Tencent Cloud for higher productivity and enhanced cost efficiency. And at the end of the quarter, the company had shed 5,000 jobs.
“While our second-quarter results reflected the initial cost savings from these efficiency initiatives, we expect to benefit more from them in the coming quarters,” Lau said. Ma added that “looking forward, we will focus on enhancing the efficiency of our businesses and launching new revenue initiatives, including in-feed advertisements in our popular Video Accounts.”
Second-quarter revenue from online advertising fell 18 percent to CNY18.6 billion, reflecting notable weakness in the internet services, education, and finance sectors, especially in April and May, partly offset by the consolidation of Sogou’s advertising revenue, Tencent noted.
Revenue from gaming at home and abroad fell 1 percent to CNY31.8 billion and CNY10.7 billion, respectively, mainly because of transitional issues, including relatively fewer big game releases, lower user spending, and the implementation of minor protection measures, the firm added.
A total of 241 new video game titles have been given permits since China resumed game licensing in April. None has gone to Tencent or NetEase, the world’s biggest game developers.
Social network revenues rose 1 percent to CNY29.2 billion due to the growth in income of WeChat Video Accounts’ live-streaming and digital content subscription services.
An executive revealed on the call that Tencent rolled out in-feed ads on WeChat Video Accounts last month, with daily usage time topping 80 percent of that of WeChat Moments. Moments has already achieved rapid ads growth and Tencent wants to further explore the growth potential of WeChat Video Accounts, the person said.
In the first half of the year, net profit plunged 53 percent to CNY42 billion from a year earlier, while revenue slipped 1 percent to CNY269.5 billion.
Source: Yicai
