Tencent: Accelerated Investment, Slowed Profitability, Can the King of Stocks Still "Attack and Defend"?

$TENCENT(00700.HK) released its Q3 2024 results after the Hong Kong stock market closed on November 13, Beijing time. The profit performance looks explosive, but it did not exceed expectations. It can only be said that under the macro environment of Q3, it is indeed very difficult for the stock king to solidly beat high expectations!

Specifically, here are the core points:

1. Let's sort out the expectations and logic: What is the market trading for Tencent?

Before discussing the financial report, let me briefly clarify the current trading logic, the priced-in logic, and the expectations of up/down risk:

Tencent's three gold mines, gaming, advertising, and fintech, are expected to grow in the following order by the end of this year: “gaming > advertising > fintech.”

Among them, gaming follows its own product cycle, while advertising and fintech follow the macro cycle. The gaming product cycle is currently strong, but marginally, it has gradually passed the peak of this cycle before the arrival of the next top-level IP, "Honor of Kings World." The current macro cycle is sluggish, but the policy shift on September 24 indicates signs of bottoming out.

Therefore, the market's trading logic can be divided into two periods:

Before September 24, the market was trading Tencent based on a “defensive logic”: “gaming recovery + relative alpha in advertising (video accounts, mini-program games) + continued cost reduction and efficiency improvement + high shareholder returns (100 billion buyback + continuous dividends),” while hedging against the “weakness in fintech” (in September, WeChat Pay entered the Taobao system, which also provided some hedging against the current weakness).

After September 24, the market is trading based on an “offensive logic.” Although Tencent's stock price rebounded accordingly, the rebound was not as strong as that of cyclical e-commerce stocks, consumer stocks, and active small-cap stocks. The dilemma here is that on one hand, the previous adjustment was not significant, and on the other hand, Tencent's gaming is gradually passing the peak of this product cycle, for example, "DnFM" has slowly dropped out of the top 5 on the bestseller list.

Although Tencent also has two cyclical gold mines, advertising and fintech, foreign capital is not eager to enter this part of the potential positive expectations until they see the real implementation of policies to promote people's livelihoods. Therefore, I believe that from the current standpoint, whether the policy side will ultimately exert force may be the biggest expectation difference in the short to medium term.

2. So, does the Q3 performance bring any changes to the above trading logic?

(1) Profit looks explosive but is actually average

The adjusted net profit for Q3 was 59.8 billion, higher than the market expectation of 54.4 billion, which looks explosive, but in reality, it did not exceed expectations. The main reasons are the differences in [share of profits from joint ventures] and [effective tax rate] compared to market expectations. Simply put, if we look solely at the operating profit of the core main business under GAAP, the Q3 figure is 50.4 billion, which is actually lower than the market expectation of 52.3 billion

(2) Revenue Pressure on the Market Has Been Fully Anticipated

Regarding the performance of various business segments, the third quarter basically confirmed the market's consensus expectations: strong performance in gaming, neutral performance in advertising, and difficulties in fintech. Therefore, Dolphin Jun will briefly discuss them together this time.

a. From the perspective of expectations and outlook, Dolphin Jun believes that the high growth in gaming is likely to continue into Q4 (deferred revenue is expected to grow by 20% year-on-year, with last year's Q4 being a low base). However, it cannot be denied that the quarter most conducive to high revenue for "DnFM" has already passed, and barring any surprises, it will inevitably go through the normal process of gradual revenue decline under the product lifecycle.

However, we also mentioned that "DnFM" is not an ordinary game, so its overall product value still has the potential to be repeatedly activated through quality operational methods, becoming a new member of Tencent's evergreen game lineup. Nevertheless, from an investment perspective, we will not make overly optimistic long-term assumptions for now, and will consider expectations based on normal revenue decline.

b. Although advertising still had relative alpha compared to peers in Q3 with video accounts and mini-program games, the incremental effects are also converging at the margins. Q4 has e-commerce festivals, which are expected to perform well, but after this year's low base, starting next year, Tencent's advertising may also begin to feel the macroeconomic chill. When advertising, like fintech, starts to be primarily influenced by macro factors, the reliance on subsequent livelihood policies will also increase.

Overall, institutions have actually fully anticipated the growth pressure on the revenue side. This is particularly evident in the expectations for fintech, where institutions have been continuously lowering their forecasts over the past month.

The only slight difference is in overseas game revenue, where the market expects a year-on-year growth rate of around 15%, but the actual figure is only 9%. However, the company has provided an explanation, stating that some games have high retention rates, thus actively extending the deferral period, and the actual revenue growth rate is higher than 9%.

In response to this explanation, Dolphin Jun's feedback is relatively positive; high retention rates indicate that the game's lifecycle will be longer, which, although it affects short-term revenue recognition, actually contributes to a higher total value for Tencent.

(3) Restarting the Investment Expansion Cycle?

Dolphin Jun added a question mark here, as we still need to confirm this based on the conference call. In Q3, Tencent's three operating expenses all showed positive growth, with a relatively noticeable increase in promotion and R&D expenses. The growth in promotion expenses is related to the intensive launch of new games, and when breaking down R&D expenses, the growth rate of server bandwidth exceeds that of employee compensation. Additionally, capital expenditures increased to 12 billion this quarter, leading us to speculate that this is likely related to investments in AI.

At the same time, the total number of employees in the group increased by 3,300 compared to the previous quarter, indicating signs of renewed expansion compared to the previous two years. This was actually unexpected for Dolphin Jun; although management mentioned in the conference calls of the previous two quarters that they would actively invest in certain promising areas (such as AI, overseas games, and video accounts), the sudden increase in personnel in a single quarter is somewhat exaggerated and contradicts recent news reports about layoffs among gaming executives Is it reasonable to speculate that this mainly involves fresh graduates entering the workforce? Perhaps Tencent has some social responsibility regarding employment. However, in addition to the increase in numbers, the average salary has also risen month-on-month, and it is unclear whether this is influenced by the DnFM mobile game bonus incentives.

We should specifically see how the management explains this in the conference call to determine whether this is just a short-term disturbance, while the overall direction of cost reduction and efficiency improvement remains unchanged. However, if the stock king truly re-enters an expansion cycle, maintaining profit growth levels will undoubtedly transmit growth pressure to the revenue side.

(4) Short-term concerns, but long-term profit potential is not in doubt

If the implemented livelihood policies are not strong enough and the short-term effects are poor, then under a continuously harsh environment, the growth dividends from games and advertising will gradually be consumed, and the market will undoubtedly become more stringent on the expenditure side. Tencent's renewed investment actions will also appear more conspicuous. However, I believe that the short-term game and the implementation of policies cannot be avoided, and due to high uncertainty in terms of time and scale, the short-term game is not very meaningful.

From a long-term perspective, I have always believed that Tencent has a high capacity to release leverage. This is not only reflected in the optimization of an organization with over 100,000 people (the efficiency of mature business is not high), but also in the linkage between various businesses along the same industrial chain, reducing friction costs at the group level, thereby improving overall efficiency.

(5) Shareholder returns: Emotional surge after September 24, buybacks decrease accordingly

In the third quarter, the group's overall net cash (cash + deposits - short-term and long-term interest-bearing debt) was 95.4 billion, a significant increase of over 20 billion compared to the previous quarter. On one hand, the recovery of games brought in higher cash flow during the period, and even with increased capital expenditures, free cash flow also increased by nearly 18 billion. On the other hand, after the September 24 policy, buybacks decreased by 15 billion compared to the previous quarter.

Currently, the repurchased shares have been canceled, and as of the end of the third quarter, the total shares of the group decreased by 0.9% quarter-on-quarter. This year's 100 billion buyback plan is one of the core logics for the market's bullish outlook on Tencent. If the buyback and dividend distribution are executed as planned, then compared to the current market value of 3.7 trillion HKD, the shareholder return would be 4%. However, if the intensity and pace of buybacks return to the situation before September 24, the shareholder return could still exceed 5%.

Moreover, the ample cash flow and net cash reserves of the stock king provide various possibilities for increasing buybacks. Therefore, I believe that even if the severe macro environment continues, Tencent still has the investment advantage of being able to "retreat to defend."

However, major shareholders are still quietly reducing their holdings. From the statistics of the last quarter, from August 14 to yesterday, November 12, Prosus sold 34 million shares within three months, continuing to slightly slow down compared to the average monthly selling pace of the previous cycle (possibly affected by the trading halt due to typhoon weather). However, since Tencent's buyback and cancellation efforts have always been greater than the sales (net reduction of 41.38 million shares during the same period from August to November), as of the end of the third quarter, the major shareholder's holding ratio has not changed much, still at 24.1%, only slightly down by 0.25% compared to the previous quarter.

(6) Detailed financial report data overview

Dolphin's Viewpoint

In the previous article, Dolphin detailed the short-term trading logic and the actual performance in the third quarter. From the perspective of performance vs. expectations, it is clear that the performance of the stock king is difficult to satisfy the market, especially considering the impact of the restart of the investment cycle on the short-term profit recovery pace. However, the recent adjustment seems to indicate that the market's negative expectations are continuously being priced in. Therefore, to assess Tencent's third-quarter performance from a more comprehensive perspective, it is necessary to consider valuation.

In the third quarter, Non-IFRS net profit exceeded expectations, driven by the contribution from the profits of associated companies Tencent shares and a reduction in the effective tax rate. The former relies on the operational performance of the associated companies, and in the short term, all companies are focused on cost reduction and efficiency improvement to enhance profitability. Therefore, Dolphin expects this positive momentum to be "sustainable" in the short term. The latter change in the tax rate is not an accidental event; last year, due to deferred taxes overseas, the effective tax rate was relatively high, but this is not a stable state. Therefore, the decline in the effective tax rate in Q3 can be seen as a "medium to long-term" stable trend.

Thus, from the overall perspective of the group, Tencent's ability to generate profits has not declined. Based on the overall EV/Non-IFRS NP valuation, the current market value of HKD 3.7 trillion implies a forward profit expectation of RMB 240 billion for 2025, with a valuation of 14x (excluding net cash). From both a historical perspective and a long-term growth (profit CAGR +10-15%) + leading premium perspective (PEG > 1), this is relatively low.

Although the short-term restart of expansion raises concerns about profit pressure, and the uncertainty of policy games still exists regarding their implementation strength, from a medium to long-term perspective, Dolphin believes that: Tencent, with its deep barriers, has the ability to adjust profits against the trend and is expected to emulate Meta in achieving similar results in AI-driven advertising. Therefore, we believe that funds that are currently avoiding due to concerns about overly consistent expectations missing forecasts may find opportunities to return after performance realization and emotional digestion. With the expansion of investment in new fields being relatively controllable, the stock king still has the potential to recover from a 14x to a neutral valuation of 16x (+15%).

Of course, subsequent livelihood policies remain crucial. If policies are positive, they will support Tencent's logic of driving advertising and cyclical growth, making a 16x valuation achievable, and even reaching 20x to barely benchmark against global internet giants. However, if short-term policy actions are minimal and macro pressures continue to dominate, Tencent is also expected to rely on "high shareholder returns and high competitive barriers" to become a "core target that can be defended."

Although under conservative to optimistic expectations, the elasticity of the assumed valuation expectations by Dolphin cannot compare with some growth stocks and trendy small caps, if one seeks relatively stable returns under the first requirement of certainty, the stock king remains a good choice.

The following is a detailed analysis

1. User Ecosystem: WeChat's Stable Expansion, QQ Has Paused Again In the third quarter, WeChat users reached 1.382 billion, with a net increase of 11 million quarter-on-quarter, and the stability of the trend expansion exceeded expectations. After a quarter of stabilization, QQ lost 9 million users during the peak summer season in the third quarter.

Stable traffic can support the deepening commercialization of the WeChat ecosystem, while changes in QQ need to be observed further to determine if they are merely short-term fluctuations. However, as younger users gradually integrate into WeChat, the long-term trend of QQ's decline is difficult to change.

The number of paid users for value-added services saw a slight rebound in Q3, with a net increase of 2 million quarter-on-quarter. Paying players for games, music members, and video members offset the decline in live streaming users. Despite the increase in users, Tencent did not make significant new investments in content, with media content costs in Q3 growing only 1.7% year-on-year. However, from a trend perspective, there seem to be signs of a new investment cycle approaching, which will be monitored further.

II. Games: Expected recovery, but will Q3 be the peak of this cycle?

In the third quarter, online game revenue reached 51.8 billion, a year-on-year increase of 12.5%. The contribution of DNFM to the complete third quarter drove the revenue recovery as expected.

However, regarding the performance of domestic and overseas segments, the market has high expectations for overseas revenue, with a year-on-year growth rate of 15%. In reality, the growth rate of overseas games was only 9%. The company explained that the high retention rate of some games led to an active extension of the deferral period, and the actual revenue growth rate is higher than 9%.

In response to this explanation, Dolphin Jun provided relatively positive feedback, as a high retention rate indicates a longer game lifecycle. Although it affected the short-term revenue recognition, it actually contributed to a higher total value for Tencent.

Domestic local market grew by 14%, finally returning to double-digit growth after three years, but it is not considered to be beyond expectations. The main driving force for growth comes from new games, primarily "Dungeon & Fighter Mobile," "Valorant," and "Delta Force." Among older games, "Peacekeeper Elite" increased its commercialization during the summer, continuing the improvement seen in the second quarter, thus contributing to the growth of domestic games in the third quarter.

Overseas games grew by 9%. In addition to "PUBG MOBILE" and "Brawl Stars," "VALORANT" expanded to PS and Xbox platforms in the third quarter, with a year-on-year growth of over 30%, also contributing significant incremental growth.

The revenue indicators calculated based on deferred income better represent the forward-looking indicators of real demand. In the third quarter, deferred income grew by 20% year-on-year, remaining flat quarter-on-quarter. Why did the deferred income in the third quarter not reflect the high user activity characteristics of the summer peak season?

Dolphin believes there are two main reasons: 1) Although new games performed well, super-popular older games like "Honor of Kings" had average performance during the summer. According to Sensor Tower data, from July to September, the iOS revenue of "Honor of Kings" saw a year-on-year decline of 5-10%. 2) User activity was high during the summer, and the recharge during that period was used to purchase items immediately. This can be seen from our calculated revenue indicators, which show that the overall value-added service revenue in the third quarter grew by 3% quarter-on-quarter, consistent with the seasonal fluctuation trends of previous normal years. Therefore, it is expected that with last year's low base, Q4 games will continue to grow.

However, it must be acknowledged that as the end of the year approaches, the peak period has already passed. From the pipeline perspective, apart from the delayed "Star of Dawn," "Rock Kingdom Mobile," and the heavyweight IP "Honor of Kings World," other games have limited potential to drive growth in the current gaming market of over 50 billion. It remains to be seen whether Tencent can continuously activate older games through excellent operational strategies, especially "DNFM," which just launched this year and is still in its popularity bonus period, potentially becoming a new member of Tencent's evergreen games.

In the industry, the third quarter was particularly competitive. Dolphin also discussed this in "Summer Game Chaos, Can Tencent Still Sit Steadily?," which you can review if interested. The overall market growth rate for games in the third quarter rebounded to 8.9%, but the growth rate for mobile games was only 1.2%. As this summer saw a chaotic competition among hundreds of mobile games, it ultimately turned out to be a zero-sum game, with some happy and some sad. However, for the top players, even if the new game "Honkai: Star Rail" is popular both domestically and internationally, it is estimated that MiHoYo may not be too happy, as the flood has washed away the Dragon King's temple, with their own game in the same genre, "Genshin Impact," also affected The growth rate during the summer is not good.

Of course, the overseas market is relatively large, and not all domestic gaming institutions have the strength to go abroad. Therefore, in the third quarter, the growth rate of domestic game overseas revenue significantly rebounded to 20%. However, for Tencent, there weren't many new products launched overseas in the third quarter, mainly just "Honor of Kings International Version" and "Valorant," etc. Thus, even with a revenue growth rate above 9%, it is expected to be relatively lower than the industry level.

III. How long can the alpha of advertising hold up?

We all know that in the past two years, with the rise of video accounts and mini-program games, Tencent has faced adversity, but its advertising business has an alpha logic. However, as the low base effect of digital diminishes, even with video accounts and mini-programs, it is difficult to counter the increasingly severe environmental impacts. Therefore, although Tencent's advertising revenue growth rate in the third quarter was still 16.6% year-on-year, meeting market expectations, the market is also worried about the upcoming pressures.

The third quarter is expected to rely mainly on the growth of social advertising (within WeChat). Among them, WeChat Mini Store and Search are new advertising growth points in the third quarter.

The WeChat Mini Store was launched in the third quarter (originally upgraded from "Video Account Mini Store"), leveraging the large traffic scale, high user engagement, and active interactions of WeChat to provide merchants with more traffic and transaction support, thereby enhancing the commercialization capability of the WeChat ecosystem. In the third quarter, WeChat Search also achieved year-on-year growth in commercial search volume and click-through rates.

It is worth mentioning that various platforms are now developing internal search functions, such as Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Kuaishou, etc. WeChat Search, especially after its launch in recent years, has continuously fed traffic to cultivate user habits. Therefore, it seems that Baidu faces significant future pressure.

Dolphin estimates that excluding the incremental impact of video accounts ( estimated video account external circulation + e-commerce advertising totals 7-8 billion, a year-on-year increase of 60-70%), the remaining traditional advertising growth rate is expected to have mid-single-digit growth.

Additionally, media advertising may have slowed down due to macro pressures. In the third quarter, Tencent Music's advertising, which is mainly based on music revenue, quickly converged year-on-year growth, while in media advertising, apart from Tencent News having a large amount of information flow advertising, most other platforms are brand advertisements, which tend to perform relatively poorly during periods of macro pressure

IV. Financial Technology and Enterprise Services: Payment Under Pressure

In the third quarter, Financial Technology and Enterprise Services grew by 2% year-on-year, slightly below market expectations, although institutions have been continuously lowering their expectations over the past month. Before financial regulations are further relaxed, Tencent is unlikely to proactively promote value-added financial services such as internet microloans (Fenfu & Fenqi) and internet insurance.

Therefore, the current pillar of the business remains payment (accounting for 90% of fintech and 70% of Jinke Enterprises). Given that payment has reached a relatively high market share, it essentially follows a strong cyclical logic. Thus, during the exceptionally weak macroeconomic period in the third quarter, a slowdown in Financial Technology's business was basically unavoidable. Under macro pressure, the offline payment industry further slowed down, coupled with the high base from the demand release after last year's pandemic, leading to a rapid year-on-year decline in the reserve funds of third-party payment institutions disclosed by the central bank. The financial report also revealed that WeChat Pay's revenue began to decline year-on-year in the third quarter.

However, in September, WeChat Pay announced its inclusion as one of the payment methods on Taobao. Although it has been placed in a less prominent position, it may not have an immediate impact in the short term. However, with WeChat having an advantage in consumption scenarios, it is expected to naturally penetrate more market share within the Taobao ecosystem. Market expectations suggest that if the GMV of WeChat Pay transactions reaches 20% of Taobao's content, it would mean an additional annual revenue of 6 billion for WeChat Pay.

In light of the short-term weakness in payment, the incremental growth in the third quarter still came from video account commissions and cloud services (WeChat Work commercialization). After excluding the 1.5 billion from video account commission revenue (Dolphin's estimated value), it implies a single-digit growth in cloud services. However, compared to the previous two quarters, there is a noticeable slowdown.

V. Investment Gains: Brother Companies Continue to Generate Profits

Regarding investment gains, based on the original indicator definition, we mainly look at the net other income (which includes investment income according to the original definition) and the share of profits from joint ventures/associates:

1) Net other income of 6.14 billion, significantly increased quarter-on-quarter, mainly due to the increase in the fair value of certain assets and asset disposal gains.

The asset disposal gains in the third quarter amounted to 2.4 billion, indicating that Tencent is continuously optimizing its investment portfolio. Combined with the company's statement since the beginning of the year that the funds required for the investment portfolio will be primarily sourced internally and will not tap into funds outside of investment operations. Repurchase pressure + investment in new technologies such as AI may continue to prompt Tencent to maintain a higher level of asset disposals compared to last year. **

2) In the third quarter, the share of profits from joint ventures/associates was 6.019 billion, mainly reflecting the profit situation of Tencent's invested but non-controlling brother companies in the third quarter. For example, Pinduoduo, Kuaishou, etc. However, this part of the profit in the third quarter has decreased compared to the previous quarter this year, which to some extent also reflects the operational pressure brought to the invested companies by the broader environment.

In addition, since Tencent's financial report is generally released before that of the brother companies, this data does not fully represent the actual profit situation of the invested companies. Tencent will make an estimate based on the data it tracks and collects, and then adjust between quarters (for example, if the previous quarter was overestimated, the next quarter will be underestimated) to align with the actual profit situation of the invested companies.

As of the end of the third quarter, the total scale of the company's joint/associate assets was 273.2 billion, combined with the profit share of 6 billion for the period, calculating Tencent's investment return rate for the third quarter at 2.2%, slightly down from the previous quarter.

VI. Restarting investment in a new cycle?

The adjusted net profit for the third quarter was 59.8 billion, higher than the market expectation of 54.4 billion, which looks explosive, but in reality, it did not exceed expectations. The main reason is that the [profit share from joint ventures] and [effective tax rate] differ from market expectations. Simply put, if we look solely at the operating profit of the core main business under GAAP, the third quarter was 50.4 billion, which is actually lower than the market expectation of 52.3 billion.

Overall, there was no significant miss in the revenue side, so the profit expectation difference mainly lies in the expenditure side, including costs and expenses In terms of gross profit, there was no further quarter-on-quarter improvement in the third quarter. On one hand, although game revenue significantly improved in the third quarter, the high revenue share given to Nexon by DNFM resulted in a lower profit margin for this new game, limiting its positive impact on the gross profit margin of value-added services in the third quarter. However, among the value-added services, the subsidiary represented by Tencent Music should maintain a stable or slightly increased gross profit margin. Therefore, the final quarter-on-quarter value of the gross profit margin for value-added services increased by 0.5 percentage points.

On the other hand, the gross profit margin for advertising also declined quarter-on-quarter. The third quarter is not a peak season for advertising, and coupled with the ongoing pressure from the macro environment, advertisers' budgets are relatively tight. Additionally, the summer period in the third quarter happens to be a peak season for entertainment short videos, which may have led to increased bandwidth server costs due to traffic expansion and user activity, but advertising revenue did not expand correspondingly.

On the expense side, there were also significant signs of acceleration in R&D and marketing expenses in the third quarter. The growth in promotional expenses (up 33% year-on-year) is related to the intensive launch of new games. Breaking down R&D expenses, the growth rate of server bandwidth (up 10.2%) is higher than that of employee compensation (up 6.1%). Additionally, capital expenditures increased to 12 billion this quarter, leading us to speculate that this is likely related to investments in AI.

At the same time, the total number of employees in the group increased by 3,300 quarter-on-quarter, indicating signs of re-expansion compared to the previous two years. This was actually unexpected for Dolphin, as management mentioned in the conference calls of the previous two quarters that they would actively invest in certain promising areas (such as AI, overseas games, and video accounts), but the sudden increase in personnel in a single quarter is somewhat exaggerated and contradicts recent news reports about layoffs among gaming executives.

However, from a long-term perspective, Dolphin still believes that Tencent's leverage effect has not been fully realized. This is not only reflected in the optimization of an organization with over 100,000 people (the efficiency of mature business personnel is not high) but also in the synergy between various businesses along the same industry chain, reducing friction costs at the group level, as well as the transformation brought about by new AI technologies Overall efficiency improvement brought about.

VII. Policy disturbances lead to a slowdown in repurchases, but still able to absorb major shareholder sell-off

Finally, let's take a brief look at the repurchase and sell-off situation. In terms of repurchase volume, Tencent's valuation significantly increased after the policy bottom on September 24, leading to a rapid slowdown in repurchases, resulting in a quarter-on-quarter decrease of HKD 15 billion in a single quarter. In the third quarter, a total of 9.5 million shares were repurchased, costing HKD 35.9 billion, and the repurchased shares have been canceled, with total shares decreasing by 0.86% compared to Q2 2024.

Compared to our statistics in August, major shareholder Prosus sold 34 million shares in the three months from August 14 to now. Considering the disturbances caused by typhoon days, the sell-off pace has remained basically flat. However, due to Tencent's greater repurchase and cancellation efforts, as of the end of the third quarter, the major shareholder's shareholding ratio has changed little, still at 24.1%, with a net asset/share price ratio of 62.4%, which means a discount rate of 37.6%, roughly unchanged from the second quarter.

Dolphin Investment Research "Tencent Holdings" related articles:

Earnings Season (Past Year)

August 14, 2024 Conference Call: “Macro has pressure, but Tencent does not lack profit adjustment points (2Q24 Conference Call Summary)”

August 14, 2024 Earnings Review: “Tencent: A 360-degree detailed breakdown of the impressive performance”

May 15, 2024 Conference Call: “Tencent: Game challenges have been largely resolved (1Q24 Conference Call Summary)”

May 15, 2024 Earnings Review: “Tencent: Video accounts transform into cash cows, stock king elegantly takes off”

March 21, 2024 Conference Call: Tencent: Games undergoing internal transformation, AI is first effectively applied to advertising business (4Q23 Conference Call)

March 21, 2024 Financial Report Commentary: Tencent: Games lost their soul, the stock king "spends money" to regain respect

November 16, 2023 Conference Call: Fully shifting to "high-quality growth" (Tencent 3Q23 Earnings Conference Call Summary)

November 15, 2023 Financial Report Commentary: Saving money "middle-aged" Tencent: Can't run anymore, only can save, save, save

August 17, 2023 Conference Call: Focusing on the commercial value of mini-games (Tencent 2Q23 Conference Call Summary)

August 16, 2023 Financial Report Commentary: Has Tencent fallen into a pit again? Minor flaws do not change the essence of the stock king

May 17, 2023 Conference Call: Positive outlook, but still will control costs (Tencent 1Q23 Conference Call Summary)

May 17, 2023 Financial Report Commentary: No surprises from Tencent? The stock king's golden quality cannot be hidden

March 22, 2023 Conference Call: Beyond its main business, Tencent is eyeing live e-commerce and AI (4Q22 Conference Call Summary)

March 22, 2023 Financial Report Commentary: 《Tencent: Are Chinese concept stocks collapsing one after another? The stock king remains steady in its home ground》

November 17, 2022 Conference Call: Tencent: Progress in Monetizing Video Accounts is Smooth, Game Licenses Expected to be Issued Soon (3Q22 Conference Call Summary)》

November 16, 2022 Earnings Report Commentary: Tencent: With WeChat's Gold Mine, It's Not Difficult for the Stock King to Make Money》

August 18, 2022 Conference Call: Cost Reduction and Efficiency Improvement Will Continue in the Second Half of the Year, Video Accounts Are Highly Anticipated (Tencent 2Q22 Conference Call Summary)》

August 17, 2022 Earnings Report Commentary: A 360-Degree Analysis of Tencent: Is It Really That Bad?》

May 18, 2022 Conference Call: Growth Guidance for This Year Depends on the Pandemic (Tencent Conference Call)》

May 18, 2022 Earnings Report Commentary: Tencent: The Stock King is Still Going Through Tribulations》

March 23, 2022 Conference Call: In an Industry Slowdown, High-Quality and Healthy Growth is Paramount (Tencent Conference Call Summary)》

March 23, 2022 Earnings Report Commentary: Tencent: Is the Stock King Still “Squatting”? The Moment to Test Faith Has Arrived》

In-Depth

July 23, 2024 Industry Overview: Summer Game Chaos, Can Tencent Still Sit Steadily in the High Seat?》

January 6, 2023: Pan-Entertainment "Good Start," Who Will Have a More Lasting Rebound, Tencent or Bilibili?》

September 28, 2022: Revisiting Tencent, Exploring the "Bottom" of the Stock King》