Chinese tech powerhouse Tencent surprised with a 31% rise in profits in the third quarter on the back of strong growth in its advertising, mobile payments and cloud services businesses, which compensated for a lull in game sales, the Financial Times reports.
The company posted net profits of Rmb 23.3 billion ($3.3 billion), compared with a market forecast of Rmb18.9 billion.
Tencent’s gaming business made up about 15% of quarterly revenue, the company said, down from 40% last year. The company is still feeling the sting of a government ban on new game licenses introduced earlier this year.
Revenue from mobile payments and cloud services were up 69% year-on-year, with the number of daily payment transactions on its WeChat Pay service growing by around 50%.