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Tencent: The Invisible Investor With More Reach Than You Might Think

Schlorgan

Schlorgan

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
14,932
Salt Lake City, Utah
There's a lot of discussion of Tencent when it comes to video games on this forum but I feel like most only see a part of the picture.

For a least a decade, Tencent has invested in and partnered with multiple video game companies to varying degrees.

Most know that they have 40% shares of Epic but that's not all they have.

Here are some other companies that Tencent is invested in or partnered with:

  • Activision Blizzard - Tencent helped facilitate Activision's split from Vivendi and currently owns 5% shares.
  • Square Enix - Last year, Square Enix and Tencent entered into a partnership to make games together, currently nothing is announced.
  • Riot Games - Fully owned by Tencent
  • Ubisoft - Tencent was one of the companies that helped Ubisoft fight off their hostile takeover by Vivendi and currently owns 5% of shares.
  • Supercell - Fully owned by Tencent
  • Take-Two - Has been partnered with Tencent for years distributing games (mainly NBA 2K) in China.
  • Bluehole Games - Tencent invested heavily in Bluehole after PUBG blew up and currently owns 11% of shares.

Tencent has a current marketcap of $400B, only below Microsoft. They are twice the size of Disney.

They are way bigger and involved in way more things than you might think.
 
vypek

vypek

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,541
I know about some of these but definitely not all of them. I wonder how far they really reach, even beyond games. Only thing I know about them outside of games is that they relatively recently started investing in Reddit.
 
ghostcrew

ghostcrew

The Shrouded Ghost
Administrator
Oct 27, 2017
30,351
Their reach goes far beyond games too. They own ~10% of Spotify for example.
 
abellwillring

abellwillring

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,919
Austin, TX
vypek said:
I know about some of these but definitely not all of them. I wonder how far they really reach, even beyond games. Only thing I know about them outside of games is that they relatively recently started investing in Reddit.
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They own the biggest chat app in the world, WeChat (actually it may be slightly behind WhatsApp still). Their Spotify-like service is massive in China.. so big that they're considering spinning it off into it's own company. Tencent are gargantuan on a scale that most people are definitely completely oblivious to. They have their hands in a lot of other industries too. I think they're incredibly undervalued.
 
LQX

LQX

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
1,871
They are also
abellwillring said:
They own the biggest chat app in the world, WeChat (actually it may be slightly behind WhatsApp still). Their Spotify-like service is massive in China.. so big that they're considering spinning it off into it's own company. Tencent are gargantuan on a scale that most people are definitely completely oblivious to. They have their hands in a lot of other industries too. I think they're incredibly undervalued.
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WeChat is why people should be wary of Tencent regardless of their other investments we like.
 
vypek

vypek

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,541
abellwillring said:
They own the biggest chat app in the world, WeChat (actually it may be slightly behind WhatsApp still). Their Spotify-like service is massive in China.. so big that they're considering spinning it off into it's own company. Tencent are gargantuan on a scale that most people are definitely completely oblivious to. They have their hands in a lot of other industries too. I think they're incredibly undervalued.
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WeChat is theirs? I don't use it but I definitely know of it. Also didn't know they had their own thing like Spotify. Sounds like they must be incredibly massive and dabble in a crazy amount of industries
 
Kthulhu

Kthulhu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,670
I'm not really worried about Tencent. I think they just wanna make money and are mostly content to focus on the Chinese market.

abellwillring said:
They own the biggest chat app in the world, WeChat (actually it may be slightly behind WhatsApp still). Their Spotify-like service is massive in China.. so big that they're considering spinning it off into it's own company. Tencent are gargantuan on a scale that most people are definitely completely oblivious to. They have their hands in a lot of other industries too. I think they're incredibly undervalued.
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WhatsApp has double the users as WeChat.
 
ResetGreyWolf

ResetGreyWolf

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,425
Well yeah, it's one of the big three tech companies in China. Video games just a blip of what they do. Tencent is investing heavily in all manners of industries, not least un emerging markets such as African nations.
 

Firefly

Member
Jul 10, 2018
8,624
fe1.jpg


/s

They also own Crossfire, a Counter Strike clone with 8 million concurrent players. Remedy is developing a single player campaign for its sequel.
 
Canucked

Canucked

Comics Council 2020 & Chicken Chaser
Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,415
Canada
Was the intent of fighting of vivendi acquisitions to move in themselves or to keep vivendi from growing?
 
Kthulhu

Kthulhu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,670
abellwillring said:
I don't think that's correct. WeChat is well over a billion -- it looks like WhatsApp has ~1.5 billion. I assume WhatsApp probably has more room to grow though since it seems like WeChat has struggled growing outside China.
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I remember reading they had 2 billion the other day. Guess I misread or something.
 

Deleted member 36578

Dec 21, 2017
26,561
They're going to rule to world someday.
 
cw_sasuke

cw_sasuke

Member
Oct 27, 2017
26,353
Miamiwesker said:
The average person has no clue what a Tencent is. And their footprint in gaming history is about nothing, League of Legends and a bunch of similar stuff. For the biggest company they are basically invisible.
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Fortnite is the biggest game ever - and the average person probably dont know who Epic are.
They are probably the most known gaming investor.
 
spam musubi

spam musubi

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,380
Let me just repost this here:


"Dissidents, activists and protesters have long reported that their WeChat accounts have been monitored by police who have acted on such information. In September, a member of China's Hui Muslim minority group was sentenced to two years in prison for teaching the Koran in WeChat chat rooms. Last year, at least three Chinese citizens were arrested and jailed for making politically sensitive jokes on WeChat."
 
xir

xir

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,566
Los Angeles, CA
they are also 237 on the fortune 500 list, previously 300-something and weren't even on it 3 years ago.
also, watch into the spiderverse and mile's phones has a lot of tencent apps on them.

also arena of valor==honor of kings is a weird rabbit hole to look at.

anyone playing the call of duty mobile game? activision published but tencent dev'd it (Timi)
 
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