Tencent fourth-quarter profit surges 90% on strong gaming, AI performance

Chinese social media giant Tencent Holdings said its fourth-quarter profit rose 90 per cent from a year earlier, aided by strong performance from its video-gaming business and more recent promotion of artificial intelligence (AI).

Profit for the three months ended December reached 51.3 billion yuan (US$7.1 billion), exceeding the consensus estimate of 43.9 billion yuan by analysts polled by Bloomberg.

Revenue grew 11 per cent to 172.4 billion yuan, beating estimates of 168.7 billion yuan.

For the full year, the company’s profit rose 68 per cent from a year earlier to 194 billion yuan, while revenue grew 8 per cent to 660.2 billion yuan, in line with estimates of 657.6 billion yuan.

The company said in its financial disclosure that it has “benefited from AI-powered enhancements to [its] advertising platform” and “growth in evergreen games”.

Shares of the Hong Kong-listed company closed down 0.2 per cent to HK$540 on Wednesday before the earnings release.