Tianfeng Securities: Tencent accelerates global expansion, leading with digital ecosystem

According to the Zhitong Finance APP, Tianfeng Securities released a research report stating that Tencent Holdings (00700) is experiencing accelerated short-term game revenue growth driven by the product cycle of its gaming business. The advertising revenue from video accounts, combined with inventory, may support the resilience of mid-term advertising revenue growth. The revenue growth from financial technology and enterprise services is expected to gradually recover with the macro environment, and the company's high gross margin incremental business lays the foundation for the continuous improvement of mid-term gross margins. In terms of international business, Tencent's global expansion and overseas investments are promising. The overseas business not only helps the company diversify in the global market but also provides a pathway to participate in the global digital economy.

The main points from Tianfeng Securities are as follows:

Tencent's overseas expansion focuses on four major directions: digital life, digital content, digital technology, and overseas investment.

In terms of digital life, the company promotes various services, including social interaction, financial services, and daily convenience, to users around the world through the WeChat platform. It has brought China's unique digital lifestyle model and integrated application business strategy to the international stage, building a bridge for overseas merchants, organizations, and individuals to communicate with Chinese tourists and overseas Chinese. In the content sector, the company has produced many high-quality digital content works overseas, primarily in the form of web dramas, online games, and web literature.

As the company continues to strengthen its overseas efforts, the proportion of overseas games is gradually increasing, with overseas game revenue rising from 23% of total game revenue in Q4 2019 to 30% in 2023. In terms of digital technology, relying on globally distributed digital infrastructure and leading technological product capabilities, Tencent provides digital technology services to more international enterprises and Chinese companies going abroad; among them, Tencent Cloud has experienced rapid growth in overseas markets, with revenue scale increasing by over 400% in three years.

Digital Life: The Dual Engines of Social and Payment.

The digital life business centers around WeChat and WeChat, with a combined monthly active account number of 1.382 billion as of Q3 2024. WeChat's cross-border payment service covers 74 countries and regions, supports settlements in 31 currencies, and has over a thousand overseas partner institutions and more than 6 million overseas merchants. As a unique innovative product from China, WeChat Mini Programs are accelerating their overseas expansion, helping overseas merchants meet operational needs at low development costs, demonstrating Tencent's strong influence and extensive user base in the global social and payment sectors.

Digital Content: Building Global Cultural Influence through Content Going Abroad.

In the digital content field, Tencent Video's overseas version WeTV covers over 200 countries and regions, with total downloads of overseas apps exceeding 200 million, operating in 10 languages.

In the gaming sector, Tencent's overseas game revenue for Q3 2024 was 14.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9%; games such as "PUBG MOBILE" and "Brawl Stars" performed strongly overseas; "VALORANT" expanded from personal computers to PlayStation and Xbox, launching console versions in five key international markets, driving the game's revenue growth by over 30% year-on-year in Q3 2024 In the field of online literature, Yuewen Group's overseas platform Qidian International WebNovel has covered more than 200 countries and regions worldwide. As of 2024, Yuewen Group has launched over 3,800 translated works of Chinese online literature overseas, and authorized more than 1,000 digital and physical book publishing works.

Digital Technology Cloud: Global Expansion of Cloud Services.

Since Tencent Cloud began its overseas operations in 2016, Tencent has laid out cloud service infrastructure globally, with 58 global availability zones and over 3,200 global acceleration nodes. The number of overseas customers has exceeded 10,000, and there are more than 11,000 global partners. Based on technologies and products such as AI, cloud-native, audio and video, edge acceleration, and databases, the company provides diverse solutions for overseas institutional users and Chinese enterprises going abroad.

Tencent Cloud's international business has maintained double-digit high growth for three consecutive years, with its big data business overseas growing over 400% in revenue scale over three years. From an industry perspective, Tencent Cloud assists numerous industry clients in gaming, social networking, e-commerce, manufacturing, finance, and more, in building efficient, secure, and stable big data infrastructure overseas.

Diversified Investment, Strategic Layout.

The company's overseas investments have played an important role in the development of its main business, cooperation in cutting-edge technology, and the construction of a global digital ecosystem. These investments have allowed Tencent to establish a more solid layout in cutting-edge technology fields such as quantum technology, artificial intelligence, and healthcare.

Risk Warning: The expansion of overseas business supply may not meet expectations, uncertainties in overseas regulation, adverse effects of foreign exchange, etc