China’s largest internet company, Tencent Holdings, is to target users of its WeChat messaging service in the next few months by introducing games aimed at mobile users.
After the Shenzhen-based company said it was working on games for WeChat - known as Weixin in China - Tencent shares rose more than five per cent. Active WeChat users have increased by 300 per cent in the last year, climbing to nearly 200 million in Q1.
Tencent chairman Ma Huateng is reportedly counting on the new games app to boost revenue and earnings growth as the company seeks to compete with Sina Corp’s Twitter-like Weibo.
“On the mobile side, we’ll try to assemble a broad collection of games,” Tencent president Martin Lau told Bloomberg. “We’ll try to source good games.”
