Tencent Net Income Misses Estimates on WeChat Marketing
Tencent Holdings, China’s largest Internet company by market value, posted profit that missed analyst estimates as it boosted spending on e-commerce and marketing to compete against Alibaba Group.
Net income rose 19% to 3.68 billion yuan ($601 million) from 3.1 billion yuan a year earlier, the Shenzhen-based company said in a statement. That missed the 3.9 billion-yuan average of six analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. The stock fell as much as 5%.
Tencent has added games and other new services to its WeChat instant messaging service, which has more than 300 million users, as it tries to commercialize the app without charging for access. The company hired soccer superstar Lionel Messi to promote the app as it counts on its popularity to compete against Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce company.
