Tencent is really huge. More than 7 billion dollars was generated by the Chinese giant at the beginning of 2017. In just 3 months they made more revenue from online games than Ubisoft and Take-Two combined earned in the entire year of 2016.
Tencent generates four times as much revenue as Activision Blizzard in Q1 2017
The results from Tencent for the first quarter of 2017 are here. There was a hefty increase of 55% compared to Q1 2016. The company’s revenue amounts to 7182 million US dollars. In comparison: Activision Blizzard made “only” 1730 million US dollars during the same period. That’s less than a quarter of that sum.
Not only is the revenue massive, the profit is also impressive: 2793 million US dollars. This number has increased by 44%.
When considering only the revenue from online games, Tencent achieves 3.3 billion US dollars in Q1 2017. The revenue here has grown by 34%.
This is more than the two Western publishers Ubisoft (Assassin’s Creed, The Division) and Take-Two (GTA V Online, Borderlands) combined made in the entire calendar year 2016, notes Asia expert Daniel Ahmad.
Tencent’s Online Games Division generated revenues of $3.3bn in Q1 2017.
The CEO of Tencent says that they made this revenue in Q1 2017 with a diversified offering: mobile games, PC games, advertising on social media, and much more.
The revenue particularly soared during the Chinese New Year celebration, which took place on January 28.
Strong in various gaming genres
Tencent claims to be a leader in various genres for PC: League of Legends is the largest MOBA. In China, they also make a lot of money with sports games unknown in the West: FIFA Online 3 and NBA 2k Online.
In the shooter category, they are at the forefront with Crossfire and Call of Duty Online. In action role-playing games, Dungeon Fighter Online holds the Tencent flag high.
But Tencent is not just a pure PC company. They are also well-positioned in the mobile games sector, having launched a variety of hits.
Completely different dimensions in the gaming market Asia: And they are buying in the West
Mein MMO thinks: For us in the West, it is hard to comprehend how the Chinese earn so much money when we have mostly never heard of their games: the West is a different gaming market than Asia. In the West, consoles like PlayStation 4 or Xbox One play a big role – in China, there is practically only the PC and mobile.
Normally, only these big purchases make headlines, but it doesn’t stop there: Just a few weeks ago, Tencent invested 90 million US dollars in the mobile games publisher Pocket Gems from San Francisco. The Chinese now pay this from their pocket change.
Time and again, in thought experiments, a scenario appears where the Chinese gaming giant could easily swallow a large Western publisher like Electronic Arts or Ubisoft. Looking at the numbers, this is becoming increasingly likely.
