Tencent-A Name To Learn |

by David Parmer

If you haven’t heard of China’s Internet giant Tencent, and don’t recognize its winking penguin, then you probably don’t live in China or follow IT very closely. But for millions of Chinese (and now increasingly those in other countries) Tencent is their Internet company of choice for one service or another. Some sources list Tencent as the world’s fourth largest Internet player after Google, Amazon, and eBay. It is certainly in the top 10.

And the question seems to be not what Tencent does, but what it doesn’t do. The answer to that is: not much. Tencent is ubiquitous-if there is an Internet service that can be provided Tencent provides it, has provided it, or will shortly provide it.

These include:

Instant messaging
Online media
Wireless Interned value added services
e-commerce
Online advertising
Street views
Payment solutions
Smart TV
Virtual currency

The company was founded in 1998 by Huateng “Pony” Ma, a 1993 graduate of Shenzhen University. The story goes that Ma saw AOL messaging, and realized that there was no such service in China and created the first Chinese language messaging service, QQ. The service was hugely successful and lead the company into online gaming, a revenue spinner that still provides a large portion of the company’s income. The timeline below shows Tencent’s steady and profitable growth in a few short years.

Tencent has gone from success to success. In January 2011 Tencent, sensing the industry-wide move to mobile devices, launched “Weixin” a mobile voice and text application. It added international support and changed the name to We Chat in 2012.

The application can be used to send and receive text messages, send and receive voice messages, photos and group messages. GPS enables users to find other users, and QR codes can be used to find friends. In 2014, Tencent will offer Smart TV which will permit program selection and controls, offer payment solutions and let users control TV with their WeChat application.

So what does Tencent do? As you can see, when it comes to the Internet, almost everything. And along the way, it has made Pony Ma one of the richest men in China.

Tencent website English http://www.tencent.com/en-us/

iTunes Store WeChat (Free) https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wechat/id414478124?mt=8

CNN: Tencent China’s Hottest Tech Company:http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/08/technology/tencent/

Photo: TechRice.com

Related Post(関連記事)