Tencent’s Income Grows at Slowest Tempo in Almost Two Many years

Tencent Chief Government Officer Pony Ma informed reporters in a name on Wednesday that 2021 was a difficult 12 months for the corporate, as Tencent sought to adapt to a more durable regulatory surroundings and structural adjustments to China’s web trade.

Final 12 months, Beijing launched a raft of laws searching for to decrease the affect of its largest web firms and improve competitors within the consumer-internet area. Tencent was largely spared the large fines slapped on its friends

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

and

Meituan,

however the Shenzhen-based know-how firm was hit by new restrictions within the gaming sector.

Chinese language authorities launched strict guidelines final August limiting the time minors’ may spend enjoying videogames to curb videogame dependancy, and what officers view as liable for a bunch of societal ills, together with distracting younger folks from college and household duties.

Tencent, which will get a big a part of its gross sales from videogames, mentioned development in its home video games income weakened to 1%, whereas income from one other key enterprise phase, internet advertising, fell 13%, as China’s wide-ranging regulatory actions final 12 months harm demand from advertisers throughout industries, notably these within the after-school-tutoring and internet-services sectors.

Nonetheless, web revenue jumped 60% to 94.96 billion yuan, primarily pushed by features of about 86 billion yuan from Tencent’s current sale of its stakes in investee firms together with Chinese language e-commerce agency

JD.com Inc.

Income from Tencent’s fintech and enterprise providers, which embrace its cloud enterprise, grew 25% to 48 billion yuan. Tencent mentioned it might be shifting the main target of its cloud operations from “income development in any respect prices” to bettering its margins.

Tencent’s muted outcomes add to a bunch of rising troubles for the corporate. Final week, The Wall Avenue Journal reported that the corporate is going through a possible file fantastic for violations of anti-money-laundering guidelines and a few central financial institution laws. The Journal this week reported on the corporate’s plan to put off hundreds of workers, together with a couple of fifth of the employees at its cloud unit, one in every of its fastest-growing companies.

Tencent President

Martin Lau

informed reporters Wednesday that the corporate would decelerate hiring new employees this 12 months because it adjusts to the brand new regular in China’s web trade. “All firms within the trade should focus extra on effectivity and value,” he mentioned.

Mr. Lau added he expects operations to enhance within the second half of the 12 months, as its promoting enterprise resumes development and as Chinese language authorities resume the approval course of for brand spanking new video games sooner or later.

Chinese language know-how giants’ earnings momentum has faltered throughout the board for the reason that later half of 2021 as a tighter regulatory panorama took its toll on monetary efficiency, whereas China’s financial restoration additionally slowed after a sequence of Covid-19 outbreaks since final summer season. Within the December quarter, Alibaba posted its slowest income development because it went public in 2014, whereas its rival JD.com swung to a loss because of weaker top-line development and better bills.

Shares of Chinese language web firms have plummeted over the previous 12 months, with Tencent falling about 12% this 12 months.

Write to Keith Zhai at keith.zhai@wsj.com