Almost five years ago Pony Ma, Tencent chief executive, boasted to other Chinese business leaders that his company was so vital it was becoming “more and more like a supplier of water or energy, like infrastructure”.
Its control of ubiquitous superapp WeChat, a spigot controlling the flow of 1bn users, also made Tencent a valuable backer for many start-ups, helping the tech company amass a listed investment portfolio worth Rmb1.2tn ($190bn) as of September 30. It also has stakes worth tens of billions of dollars more in private companies, according to a person close to company executives.
But the Chinese Communist party’s campaign to rein in rival giants such as Alibaba and Meituan has prompted a dramatic rethink of Tencent’s strategy of extending tentacles throughout the country’s tech scene, according to company insiders, top industry executives and an analysis of investment data.