Tencent beats estimates as WeChat, mobile games drive growth

Icons for the Tencent Holdings Ltd. messaging applications QQ, left, and WeChat are seen in this arranged photograph taken in Hong Kong, China, on Thursday, Oct. 12, 2017. Regulators elsewhere may be clamping down on the financial industry's use of private messaging apps, but in China the practice is flourishing. Players in the country's $11 trillion bond market use personal accounts on WeChat and QQ for everything from distributing research to soliciting orders. Photographer: Justin Chin/Bloomberg

Tencent Holdings Ltd posted a quarterly profit that exceeded estimates, bolstered by mobile game blockbusters like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds as users on China’s most popular social network surpassed a billion for the first time. 

Tencent posted a 61% jump in net income to 23.3bil yuan (RM14.48bil) in the three months ended March, outstripping the 17.4bil yuan (RM10.81bil) average projection. That was buoyed by a one-time gain of almost 7.6bil yuan (RM4.72bil) as the value of investments in arenas from video streaming to news content rose.