Tencent’s sales growth sped up after blockbuster game release

TENCENT Holdings’ revenue accelerated its growth after the blockbuster summer release of Dungeon & Fighter Mobile helped lift China’s most valuable company out of a gaming trough.

Revenue jumped 8 per cent to 161.1 billion yuan (S$29.7 billion) for the April-to-June period, versus the projected estimate of 161.4 billion yuan. Net income surged to 47.6 billion yuan, compared with the estimated 39.9 billion yuan.

Competition in China’s US$40 billion-plus gaming arena sparked back to life this summer. DnF Mobile got off to a hot start and maintained momentum even with the debuts of major rival titles by NetEase and Genshin Impact studio Mihoyo. Tencent’s hack-and-slash game could rack up 22 billion yuan this year, or 3 per cent of Tencent’s total revenue, according to an estimate by Morningstar.

Tencent is still on the hunt for more blockbuster releases to augment its Honor of Kings, long China’s most lucrative title. Black Myth: Wukong is another highly anticipated title that’ll go live on consoles and PCs on Aug 20, and is already the top seller on gaming platform Steam. Tencent is the Chinese publisher of the big-budget action game and a major investor in its developer. Its own Breaking Dawn – an extension of the Honor of Kings franchise in the fighting game genre – is also expected to roll out in the next few months.