China is one nation which will never fail to engulf us. Every now and then, we keep hearing about some or the other creative solutions provided to us by the Chinese. But their most rip-roaring tale is in the Technology sector.
Yes, China is a home to one of the biggest tech companies.
One of these includes the colossal company about which most of us are absolutely unconscious – TENCENT.
Tencent is the fourth-most profitable internet business in the world after Amazon, Google and eBay.
Tencent is ahead of Facebook which stands firmly at number 5 in this race.
To put it concisely, Tencent is perhaps one of the most triumphant companies you’ve never gleaned of.
About Tencent
Tencent is one massive set up which offers everything from social networking to voice and text chat, microblogs, social gaming, music and e-commerce.
It was initiated in November 1998 and since then, it has never looked back!
This $139 billion company with nearly a billion users’ functions like Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and what not. It’s base of operation lies in Shenzhen and is controlled and led by Ma Huateng who is fondly called Pony Ma.
Products and Services offered by Tencent :
1) QQ instant messenger –
In China, all the rage is about this mighty instant messenger. At 829 million active users, QQ is the company’s most victorious offering.
2) WeChat –
Most of us are au fait with this mobile application.
This Instant messaging application offered voice messages and voice calls much before WhatsApp did. Other than this, WeChat has some more extremely cool features; one of them includes the ability to turn any image into an emoticon. Sounds impressive, right?
3) Multiplayer online games-
Tencent Games has set a niche for itself in multi-segment online game markets. It has 3D and 2D games that incorporate elements from Chinese mythology.
One of the most popular games which Tencent has developed is Journey to the fairyland which also happens to be Tencent’s first 3D games.
Well, the list of games offered by Tencent seems to be ceaseless.
4) Dididache Taxi –
Dididache which in Mandarin means ‘Honk Honk, catch a cab’ is a mobile application which works pretty much like Uber.
5) Tencent Weiyun –
This is a cloud storage service that offers 10 TB of free storage. That’s huge! Now this service has completely thrashed every possible foreign competitor out there including Google, Microsoft and Dropbox!
Other diversified services include Weixin for communications; Qzone for social networking; QQ.com for information; as well as an eCommerce open platform.
Well, as much as its diversification astonished you, I’m pretty sure the facts and figures below will completely blow your minds.
- Tencent’s instant messaging platform QQ has over 829 million users, and it is much bigger than Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter combined. Astonishing,right?
- WeChat, another offering of Tencent is the fifth most-used smartphone app worldwide. It has over 468 million users out of which 100 million are not Chinese.
- A handful of sensational games fuel over half the company’s revenue. Yes, that is how well liked these games are among the natives.
- In days to come, Tencent will be much bigger than Facebook. It is extremely close to becoming the world’s top social network. It is applaudable that WeChat has almost tripled its users and now there is not much of a difference between the number of Facebook users and Tencent users. Tencent is surely a Chinese dragon!
- The market value of Tencent is US$200 billion and its networth is more than McDonalds. Scary much?
source: google images
The Battle is on: Facebook Vs Tencent –
User Base: Though both these monster companies are moving at a scary pace, yet, Facebook is still leading the battle when it comes to the user base. Tencent has a base of over 1 billion users and Facebook has a base of over 1.1 billion users. But still, I think we should even consider the fact that 85% of the users of Tencent belong to China whilst, Facebook has its users across the globe.
Revenue: Facebook generates most of its revenue from Ads where as tencent is earning hefty amounts by selling online games.
Net Margin: Facebook has a net margin of 23% while Tencent has a net margin of 30%. Proves that Tencent has a comparatively higher net margin.
The question which arises is that Should Facebook be worrying about this enormous company called Tencent? Will it leave facebook behind in a few years?
Well, the numbers surely speak it all.
