Rising content costs hit profitability at Tencent, the Chinese social media group, which unveiled annual net income of Rmb41.4bn ($5.97bn) for the year to end-December — below Bloomberg’s consensus analyst forecasts of Rmb44.1bn.
Shenzhen-based Tencent, the most highly valued stock in the emerging market universe with a market capitalisation of $270bn, still displayed strong growth.
Net profit was up 42 per cent year on year and revenues surged 48 per cent to Rmb151.94bn on the back of games including Honor of Kings, which continued to dominate domestic gaming charts. But the annual operating margin shrank from 39 per cent to 37 per cent.