Investing.com - Shares of Hong Kong-listed gaming and social media gaming giant Tencent Holdings Ltd (HK:0700) declined on Friday in Asia following the release of its fourth-quarter and annual earnings report.
Net profit for Q4 fell 32% from the same period last year to 14.3 billion yuan ($2.1 billion), according to a statement released after the Hang Seng Index closed on Thursday. Tencent said the fall in profit was due to costs related to the listing of Tencent Music, the company’s streaming music subsidiary.
Revenue rose 28% to 84.9 billion yuan ($12.7 billion), with sales from mobile games rising 12%. That was “better-than-feared,” said Karen Chan, an analyst at Jefferies, in a CNN report.
“Our revenue structure is very diverse now and other segments are growing very rapidly,” said Martin Lau, Tencent’s president.
In 2018, the company was hit by a nine-month long suspension on new games licences by the Chinese government.
Authorities resumed its gaming approval process in December. So far, eight games made by Tencent have been given the greenlight this year to launch.
Shares of the company traded higher in the morning but then dropped 1.2% by 12:01 AM ET (04:01 GMT).