61 Facts About Tencent

Tencent is the world's largest video game vendor, as well as one of the most financially valuable companies.

Tencent has stakes in over 600 companies, and began focusing on tech start-ups in Asia in 2017.

Tencent was founded by Pony Ma, Zhang Zhidong, Xu Chenye, Charles Chen and Zeng Liqing in November 1998 as Tencent Inc, incorporated in the Cayman Islands.

The name "Tencent" is based on its Chinese name Tengxun, which incorporates part of Pony Ma's Chinese name (Ma Huateng; ?????) and literally means "galloping fast information".

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.

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Tencent Holding Ltd was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on 16 June 2004, and it was added as a Hang Seng Index Constituent Stock in 2008.

Tencent acquired a minority stake in Epic Games, developer of franchises like Fortnite, Unreal, Gears of War and Infinity Blade, in June 2012.

Tencent took part in Activision Blizzard splitting from Vivendi as a passive investor in 2013 and now owns less than 4.

On 17 September 2013, it was announced that Tencent had invested $448 million for a minority share in Chinese search engine Sogou.

On 27 February 2014, Tencent purchased a 20-percent stake in restaurant ratings and group-buying website Dianping for $400 million.

On 10 March 2014, Tencent bought a 15 percent stake in Chinese e-commerce website JD.

On 27 March 2014, it was announced that Tencent had agreed to pay about $500 million for a 28 percent stake in South Korea's CJ Games.

On 23 October 2014, Tencent pitched in $145 million for a 10 percent stake in Koudai Gouwu, a Chinese mobile shopping portal.

On 30 January 2015, Tencent announced that it had signed a US$700 million deal with the National Basketball Association to stream American basketball games in China.

In July 2016, Tencent acquired a majority stake in China Music Corporation.

In May 2017, Tencent surpassed Wells Fargo to enter the world's top 10 most valuable companies.

Tencent has entered an agreement with the Wuhu City Council to build the world's first eSports 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.

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.

Tencent has developed its own voice assistant Xiaowei, and was in the midst of discussion to acquire Rovio Entertainment, the developer of Angry Birds.

Tencent became the second Asian company after Alibaba Group to surpass US$400 billion market cap.

Tencent has created an alliance to its own AI self-driving program, similar to Baidu's Apollo Project, recruiting numerous industry players in the automotive industry.

Tencent remained the largest video game publisher in the world by revenue, and had a market capitalisation of around $475 billion.

Tencent 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.

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.

In October 2019, Tencent began sending out refunds to customers after cancelling the broadcast of NBA games in response to the Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey's social media comments in support of protests in Hong Kong.

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On 29 June 2020, Tencent acquired the video-on-demand service iflix in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

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.

Tencent later announced too its intention to take DouYu private, in part due to the unsuccessful merger, but due to lacklustre business performance and disagreements over strategy among company executives.

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 deals in advance.

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.

On 16 September 2022, Tencent took a minority stake in Mordhau studio Triternion.

Tencent created QQ International, which is an English version of QQ that allows communication with mainland accounts, QQi is available for Windows and macOS.

In 2015, Tencent launched Tencent Pictures, a film distributor and a production company that creates and distributes films based on books, comic books, animated series and video games.

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.

In 2014, Tencent established exclusive in-China distribution agreements with several large music producers, including Sony, Warner Music Group and YG Entertainment and in 2017 it signed a deal with Universal Music Group to stream its music in China.

In October 2019, Tencent Music reached a streaming music distribution agreement with CD Baby 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 started testing Trovo Live, a live-streaming service for worldwide users.

In late April 2017, Tencent announced it was preparing to launch its virtual reality headset that year.

On 10 March 2014, Tencent bought a 15 percent stake in Chinese e-commerce website JD.

Tencent was reported in 2017 to be working with China's Central Bank to develop a central payments clearing platform for online payments.

In 2008, Tencent released a media player, available for free download, under the name QQ Player.

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.

On 26 May 2020, Tencent announced it planned to invest 500 billion yuan 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.

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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.

Tencent was the second-largest Nio shareholder in terms of voting rights after Li Bin, founder of the automaker, who held 13.

Tencent's governance is aided by its Strategy Department, commonly known as SD, which provides business analytics for the corporation's various divisions.

Tencent has at least four wholly foreign-owned enterprises and nearly twenty subsidiaries.

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.

Occasion of the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, Tencent released a mobile game titled "Clap for Xi Jinping: An Awesome Speech", in which players have 19 seconds to generate as many claps as possible for the party leader.

Three years later, Tencent released a copied version of ICQ, naming it OICQ, which stands for Open ICQ.

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.

Colin Huang, founder of Pinduoduo, said “Tencent won't die when Pinduoduo dies, because it has tens of thousands of sons.

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.

Qihoo was later accused of cheating, while Tencent was accused of actively gaming the anti-malware tests.

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 in compensation and a public apology.

Tencent emphasized, "That will never happen on my watch as the founder, CEO, and controlling shareholder, " and that Epic is an American company, implying that it would not compromise an ethos of free speech in the name of currying favor with authorities in China just to try to maximize profit there.

Later, Tencent announced it would stop broadcasting Houston Rockets NBA games in China due to a tweet made by Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets, that was supportive of Hong Kong protestors.

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.