Chinese internet and games giant Tencent, which owns a majority stake in
League of Legends developer Riot Games, posted big profits this week, thanks to a continuing surge in smartphone games.
For the second fiscal quarter ended June 30, the company reported non-GAAP profits of 5.4 billion yuan ($957 million), a 58 percent rise compared to the same quarter a year ago. Revenues were 19.75 billion yuan ($3.2 billion) for the quarter, a 37 percent year-on-year rise.
Driving Tencent’s smartphone surge is its chat app, WeChat, known as Weixin in China. Tencent uses the incredibly popular chat app as a distribution platform for games. Tencent’s chat app grew 57 percent year-on-year to 438 million users by the end of the quarter.
Tencent has its hand in a variety of internet-related businesses, but games drive over half of the company’s revenue. The company bought a majority stake in
League of Legends developer Riot Games in 2011.
