Tencent's online game revenue surpasses $4 billion in Q3

Tencent’s online game revenue is up 11 percent year-over-year for the quarter ending [September 30], coming in at RMB 28.6 billion or just over $4 billion for the three-month period.

The Chinese company shared performance for its video game dealings alongside other departments in its latest financial report, noting that smartphone games, as well as advertising and commercial payment services, helped drive a 21 percent year-over-year increase in revenue for the company as a whole.

Zeroing in on Tencent’s game business, mobile games like Honour of Kings, PUBG Mobile, Call of Duty Mobile, and the China-only PUBG-like Peacekeeper Elite were called out as games with a strong showing this quarter.

Riot Games’ Teamfight Tactics was also called out for “establishing global leadership in the emerging auto chess genre” alongside those notable mobile games, though as a whole PC game revenue decreased on both a yearly and quarterly basis despite gains made by League of Legends in China.

Smartphone games alone saw a 25 percent increase in revenue, coming in at RMB 24.3 billion (~$3.5 billion) for the quarter, driven by “robust performance of key domestic titles and increasing contributions from overseas.” As mentioned before, revenue from PC client games decreased 7 percent year-on-year (and 2 percent from Q2) to RMB 11.5 billion (~$1.6 billion). However, Tencent attributes the bulk of this drop to high revenue last year driven by an in-game anniversary event.

Tencent as a whole reported revenue of RMB 97.2 billion (~$13.8 billion), up 21 percent year-over-year, and non-IFRS operating profit of RMB 28.5 billion (~$4 billion), up 27 percent year-over-year.