Tencent opens its wallet to drive growth in slowing economy

Hong Kong

TENCENT Holdings Ltd's growing appetite for spending on new businesses helped fuel a stronger-than-expected rise in revenue despite a weakening Chinese economy.

Asia's largest Internet company ratcheted up spending by 69 per cent in the third quarter to bankroll forays into content, cloud computing, online finance and video-streaming. That in turn drove a faster-than-anticipated 52 per cent rise in revenue to 40.4 billion yuan (S$8.3 billion) for the operator of social media phenomenon WeChat.