2010-08-12 09:47

HONG KONG - Chinese Mainland leading internet company, Tencent, earned 3.7 billion yuan in the first half of this year, a surge of 66 percent from a year earlier, on increasing advertising sales and rising number of users for its social networking services, said Tencent in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Wednesday.

Tencent announced the unaudited consolidated results for the second quarter and the first half of 2010 ended June 30.

Revenues increased by 65.3 percent to 8,895.2 million yuan for the first half of 2010 from 5,382.8 million yuan for the first half of 2009.

The company will not give an interim dividend.

Profit for the second quarter of 2010 increased by 60.7 percent to 1,931.2 million yuan from 1,201.7 million yuan for the second quarter of 2009.

Looking into the third quarter of 2010, Tencent expect on-line games within Internet value-added services (IVAS) business to benefit from positive seasonality due to summer school holidays. However, the year-on-year growth rate of the overall IVAS business is expected to slow down compared to the previous year as it already has reached a relatively larger revenue base.

Tencent shares fell 4 percent in Hong Kong to HK$148.70 before the earnings were announced.