Tencent reports slowest quarter since listing

Gaming and social media giant Tencent reported on Wednesday its slowest quarterly growth since listing in 2004 amid regulatory supervision of the tech sector.

The company posted 144.2 billion yuan ($22.6 billion) for the quarter ending in December on a non-IFRS basis, representing an increase of 8 percent year-on-year.

Non-IFRS adjustments exclude share-based compensation and merger and acquisition-related impacts. The company in the quarter offloaded a majority of its stake in e-commerce player JD.

Profit attributable to equity holders of the company was 24.9 billion yuan, down 25 percent from a year ago.

Domestic games revenues grew by 1 percent to 29.6 billion yuan, while international games revenues grew 34 percent to 13.2 billion yuan.

For the whole of 2021, Tencent raked in revenue of 560.1 billion yuan, up 16 percent compared with 2020. That was also the slowest yearly revenue growth rate on record.

"2021 was a challenging year, in which we embraced changes and implemented certain measures that reinforced the company's long-term sustainability, but had the effect of slowing our revenue growth," Tencent Chairman and CEO Pony Ma said in a statement.

"Despite financial headwinds, we continued to make strategic headway, including driving widespread adoption of our enterprise software and productivity tools, increasing content creation and consumption in our video accounts and expanding our international games business."

Hong Kong-traded Tencent stocks edged up 0.26 percent to close at HK$389 on Wednesday.

In around one year's time, Tencent shares dropped from more than $HK750 and once tumbled to below HK$300 earlier this month, due to an array of complexities including Beijing's antitrust campaigns and global macroeconomic uncertainties.