.jpg){kind=avatar}
Tencent, best known for the WeChat messenger that almost everyone in China uses, has a growing fintech business making up 26% of its revenue last quarter. On its own it would be China’s 4th largest listed company and the world’s 6th biggest financial services firm.
I estimate that revenue from Tencent’s fintech business grew in excess of 70% last year.(1) The vast majority of that was payments. Yet Tencent also offers other products such as wealth management and has a 30% stake in WeBank, China’s first online-only bank, which was founded five years ago. Data on its fintech profits are hard to ascertain, yet information disclosed by Alibaba shows that Ant Financial was unprofitable last year, so Tencent could be in a similar boat.
unknownx500
More posts by Faisal Kawar
