Tencent
Tencent Holdings Ltd. (Chinese: 腾讯; pinyin: Téngxùn) is a Chinese multinational technology conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. 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 based on its equity investments, with Tencent Games being the subdivision of Tencent Interactive Entertainment Group (IEG) focused on publishing of games.[4]
Native name
腾讯控股有限公司
- SEHK: 700
- OTC Pink: TCEHY
- Hang Seng Index component
11 November 1998
- Pony Ma
- Tony Zhang
- Xu Chenye
- Charles Chen
- Zeng Liqing
Tencent Binhai Mansion, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
- Pony Ma (chairman, CEO)
- Martin Lau (executive director, president)
CN¥235.706 billion (US$33.15 billion) (2022)[1]
CN¥188.709 billion (US$26.54 billion) (2022)[1]
CN¥1.578 trillion (US$221.94 billion) (2022)[1]
CN¥782.860 billion (US$110.10 billion) (2022)[1]
112,771 (2021)[1]
See § Foreign studio assets for game studios Subsidiaries
腾讯
騰訊
Téngxùn
Téngxùn
ㄊㄥˊ ㄒㄩㄣˋ
T'eng2-hsün4
Téng-syùn
Tàhng Seun
tang4 seon3
腾讯控股有限公司
騰訊控股有限公司
Téngxùn Kònggǔ Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī
Téngxùn Kònggǔ Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī
ㄊㄥˊ ㄒㄩㄣˋ ㄎㄨㄥˋ ㄍㄨˇ ㄧㄡˇ ㄒㄧㄢˋ ㄍㄨㄥ ㄙ
Teng2-hsün4 K'ung4-ku3 Yu3-hsien4 Kung1-szu1
Téng-syùn Kòng-gǔ Yǒu-siàn Gong-sih
tang4 seon3 hung3 gu2 jau5 haan6 gung1 si1
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Founded in 1998, its subsidiaries globally market various Internet-related services and products, including in entertainment, artificial intelligence, and other technology.[5] Its twin-skyscraper headquarters, Tencent Seafront Towers (also known as Tencent Binhai Mansion) are based in the Nanshan District of Shenzhen.[6]
Tencent is the world's largest video game vendor,[7] as well as one of the largest companies in the world by market capitalization.[8] It is among the largest social media,[9] venture capital, and investment corporations.[10][11] Its services include social networks, music, web portals, e-commerce, mobile games, internet services, payment systems, smartphones, and multiplayer online games.[12] It operates the instant messengers Tencent QQ and WeChat, and QQ.com.[13] It also owns Tencent Music.
The company surpassed a market value of US$500 billion in 2018, becoming the first Asian technology company to cross this valuation mark.[14][15][16] 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.[17][18][19][20] In 2015, 2018, and 2020, the company was ranked by the Boston Consulting Group and Fast Company among the 50 most innovative companies worldwide.[21][22][23] Tencent has stakes in over 600 companies,[24] and began focusing on tech start-ups in Asia in 2017.[25] TechCrunch characterized Tencent's investment strategy as letting its portfolio startups operate autonomously.[26] Tencent's valuation approached US$1 trillion in January 2021 before it plummeted.[27] Tencent Holdings was ranked 35th on Forbes Global 2000 2023 list.[28]
Products and services[edit]
Social media[edit]
Launched in February 1999,[143] Tencent QQ is Tencent's first and most notable product, QQ is one of the most popular instant messaging platforms in its home market.[144] As of 31 December 2010, there were 647.6 million active Tencent QQ IM user accounts,[1] 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.[145] While the IM service itself is free, a fee was being charged for mobile messaging as of 2006.[146] 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.[147] 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.[31][148]
On 10 April 2010, Tencent launched Tencent Weibo, a microblogging service.[149]
WeChat is a mobile app with functions such as voice- and text messaging, mobile payment, and a friends-only social network called Moments.[150] It is the most popular social mobile application in China and some overseas Chinese communities, for instance, Malaysia. As of 2017, WeChat has been unsuccessful in penetrating major international markets outside of China.[151]
Chinese government partnerships[edit]
For the 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.[299]
In August 2019, it was reported that Tencent collaborated with the Guangdong Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Daily to develop "patriotic games".[300][301]
In a December 2020 article in Foreign Policy, a former senior official of the Central Intelligence Agency 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.[302]
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.[303][304]
In June 2022, Tencent partnered with Shanghai United Media Group to launch a plan to develop domestic and foreign influencers.[305]
Controversies[edit]
Allegations of copying[edit]
Many of Tencent's software and services share similarities to those of competitors,[306][307][308][309][310][311] and to their own.[312] The founder and chairman, Huateng "Pony" Ma, famously said, "[To] copy is not evil." A former CEO and president of SINA.com, Wang Zhidong, said, "Pony Ma is a notorious king of copying." Jack Ma of Alibaba Group stated, "The problem with Tencent is the lack of innovation; all of their products are copies."[313]
In 1996, an Israeli company named Mirabilis released one of the first stand alone instant messaging clients named ICQ.[314] Three years later, Tencent released a copied version of ICQ, naming it OICQ, which stands for Open ICQ.[315] 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.[316] 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.[315]
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.[317][316] 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.[318] In January 2023, Tencent's trailer for their new MMORPG, Tarisland, was said to resemble Blizzard's World of Warcraft.[319]
Tencent's acquisitions[edit]
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.[317] 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, Activision Blizzard, SuperCell, and Bluehole.[320] 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."[321]
Security concerns[edit]
In 2015, security testing firms AV-Comparatives, AV-TEST and Virus Bulletin jointly decided to remove Tencent from their software whitelists. 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.[322] 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.[323][324]
Censorship[edit]
Tencent's WeChat platform has been accused of blocking TikTok videos and the censorship of politically sensitive content.[325][326][327] 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.[328] In response, Toutiao filed a complaint the following day against Tencent for allegedly unfair competition and asking for RMB 90 million in economic losses.[329]
However, Tim Sweeney, the CEO and founder of Epic Games, 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.[330] In a statement, Sweeney said it would "never happen on [his] watch", 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.[331]
Later in October 2019, Tencent announced it would stop broadcasting Houston Rockets 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.[332]
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.[333]
In January 2021, a proposed class action lawsuit was filed in California against Tencent, alleging user censorship and surveillance via WeChat.[334]
In November 2022, Sustainalytics downgraded Tencent to "non-compliant" with the United Nations Global Compact principles due to complicity with censorship.[335]
2020 U.S. executive order on WeChat[edit]
On 6 August 2020, President Donald Trump 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's administration, 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 had been openly spoken of, but there are unlikely any immediate buyers for Tencent in the U.S.[336] Los Angeles Times 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.[337][338]
