China's tech giant Tencent is unfazed by what's going on around the world today. In fact, its shareholder income rose 20 percent year-on-year to 93.3 billion yuan (about US$13.3 billion) despite the global health crisis.
Tencent's daily active user accounts reached 10 million, two months after it was launched last December, as more users began working from home amide the ongoing coronavirus scare.
The company's basic earnings per share was pegged at 9,856 yuan, with a Non-IFRS net income increase of 22 percent last year. Tencent's businesses are primarily online, placing it uniquely against other tech giants like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd that concentrate on e-commerce and whose supply chains have been seriously disrupted by the outbreak that started in China.
Tencent was more positive than most companies in a fourth-quarter earnings report which struck a cautious tone about the effect the epidemic will have on its operations.
Yet the company posted net a income of $3.1 billion, below analysts' expectations of $3.66 billion. Tencent stock dropped 5.1 percent on the stock exchange early Thursday, closing at 42.28, but that's no cause for alarm for the company.
The business is a market leader in China's email, payment and gaming services. Revenue from online ads stood at 68.4 billion yuan, up 19 percent this year.
Online gaming revenue rose by 10 percent from the previous year to 114.7 billion yuan, while fintech and business services expanded by 23 percent year-on-year to 101.4 billion yuan over the period. Tencent's sales from social networks rose by 17 percent from a year earlier to 85.3 billion yuan.
Weixin's and WeChat's combined monthly active user accounts, on the other hand, were up 6.1 percent from a year earlier to 1.165 billion, with the smart app falling to 647 million monthly active QQ users by 7.5 percent.
The company's gaming titles like Honor of Kings and Peacekeeper Elite as well as video streaming platforms have seen an uplift in downloads as the Chinese government has urged millions of people to stay at home and away from crowded places to curb the spread of the virus.
In total, this February's downloads of all Tencent apps increased 32.3 percent month-on-month, and 42.9 percent year-on-year, the company disclosed.
The tech giant said the coronavirus led 8 billion visitors to its WeChat app as users flocked to get "safety codes" they need to send authorities to fly around China.
For the fiscal year, Tencent posted Cloud sales of $2.5 billion, with paying customers exceeding 1 million. That could provide a long-term advantage to Tencent's stock.
