Tencent’s total revenue up 28% year-on-year

As potential WeChat ban looms, Tencent announced the financial results for the second quarter of 2020 on Wednesday. The company reported $31.49 billion (¥222.9 billion) in revenue with a 28% year-on-year increase in the first half of the year. 

The company’s revenue from its online game division grew by 40% to 38.29 billion yuan as compared to the first quarter of 2020 during the lockdown period thanks to mobile games such as Peacekeeper Elite and Honour of Kings. Total smartphone games revenue increased by 62% year-on-year to 35.99 billion yuan. 

In its earnings release, Tencent said: “In China, user time spent on our smart phone games increased year-on-year but decreased quarter-on-quarter due to seasonality and back-to-office behavior.”

The company also stated that the number of monthly active users of its mobile and web game apps including CODE:D Blood, Legends of Runeterra, and Valorant increased in the given time period.

Internationally, our MAU (monthly active users) increased significantly year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter due to new game launches and more user time spent during the stay-at-home period.

Tencent said that Valorant was the most watched game globally on Twitch during the second quarter of 2020. 

The company launched an integrated advertising platform in July 2020, where advertisers can more efficiently place advertisements across all of their inventories, including their mobile advertising network. They reported a 27% increase in advertising revenues, primarily thanks to the revenue growth from their mobile advertising network. In the second quarter 2020, the video advertising revenue up 40% as compared to the second quarter of 2019.