The third quarter earnings at Tencent Holdings Ltd, a Chinese instant message service provider, jumped 51 percent on robust advertising growth and strong online game sales from newly launched titles, which offset a slower rise in wireless services.

 

Net income totaled 426 million yuan (US$56.8 million), or 0.232 yuan per fully diluted share. Revenue increased 43.5 percent to more than one billion yuan, it said yesterday in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange after the market closed. Its shares gained HK$3.65, or seven percent, to close at HK$55.65 (US$7).

 

Tencent, operator of China's largest instant messenger program "QQ," has been diversifying its revenue stream and improving its brand image to attract more advertisers to its portal QQ.com which has a loyal QQ user base that accounts for about two-thirds of the nation's 170 million Web population.

 

The company, based in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, launched two online role-playing game titles, QQ SanGuo and QQ Huaxia, late in the second quarter, which helped boost game sales 41 percent year on year to 231 million yuan in the third quarter - the time for school summer holidays.

 

Its online ad sales also increased sharply by 80 percent from the same period last year to 145 million yuan as online game and educational firms placed more advertising during the summer season.

 

Meanwhile, revenue from wireless services grew 17 percent to 193.5 million yuan.

 

Ma Huateng, chairman and chief executive officer of Tencent, said it will "continue to invest in strengthening integrated Internet platforms to better serve users."

 

(Shanghai Daily November 15, 2007)