Mobile games continue to drive rising online game revenue for Tencent

Tencent says that its revenue from online games rose by 26 percent for the first quarter of its fiscal year, jumping to RMB 28.8 billion (~$4.5 billion) for the quarter. 

While that category includes revenue from both PC and mobile online games, Tencent notes that the rise was driven almost entirely by mobile revenue since the revenue generated by PC games didn’t see a change from last year’s Q1 numbers. 

Mobile games, including those “mini-programs” offered through the company’s chat apps like Weixin and WeChat, brought in RMB 21.7 billion (~$3.4 billion) in revenue. That marks a 68 percent increase year-over-year and a 28 increase over last quarter, something that Tencent attributes to its games Honour of Kings and new release QQ Speed Mobile, as well as engagement boosts from seasonal in-game promotions. 

Honour of Kings, which itself debuted in China in 2015, topped China’s iOS Top Grossing Chart, Tencent noted in a release, and saw "double-digit growth" in daily active users along with “strong growth” in year-over-year revenues. 

PC games, meanwhile, brought in roughly RMB 14.1 billion (~$2.2 billion) for the period, which Tencent notes is about the same as the year prior. The company credits this lack of growth to a continued shift from PC to mobile devices, though it says “core user engagement” remained stable. 

Tencent still looks to expand its PC game presence in the future, however, partially through releasing a version of the battle royale PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds in China, a game that is currently pending government approval. Additionally, Tencent, an investor in Fornite developer Epic Games, has started the pre-registration process to bring Fortnite to China on PC.

Overall, Tencent as a company pulled in RMB 73,528 million (~$11.7 billion) in revenue for the quarter, a 48 percent increase year-over-year, and RMB 23,973 million (~$3.8 billion) in profit, a 65 percent increase year-over-year.