Tencent's 2025 revenue beats estimates as Chinese tech giant ramps up AI investment

In this articleTencent on Wednesday reported full-year revenue that topped analyst predictions, as the Chinese tech giant continues to ramp up investments in AI.Here's how Tencent did in its full-year earnings for 2025:"We sustained healthy growth rates in 2025, as AI capabilities improved our ad targeting and supported more engagement with our games, and as our cloud business delivered improving revenue growth and profit at scale," Ma Huateng, Chairman and CEO of Tencent, said in a statement."Our highly resilient and cash-generative core businesses provide us with the resources to fund our increasing investments in AI, including recruiting top-tier AI talent and upgrading our AI infrastructure."Tencent spent 18 billion Chinese yuan on AI products in 2025 and plans to double that this year, the company said on a call with media.The quarterly result was "solid" and broadly in line with Citi's expectations, analysts said in a note published shortly after the earnings statement.A positive surprise came from accelerated business services revenue growth of 22% in the fourth quarter, supported by stronger cloud income across domestic and international markets — including AI-related services — as well as higher e-commerce technology fees, the Citi analysts said.Domestic games revenues were 164.2 billion Chinese yuan, up 18% year-on-year, which Tencent said was underpinned by "robust" performance of the recently released "Delta Force" and evergreen games. The owner of Chinese social media platform WeChat posted international games revenue of 77.4 billion Chinese yuan — surpassing $10 billion for the first time — and revenue from social networks was up 5% to 127.7 billion Chinese yuan.Fintech and business services revenues rose by 8% year-on-year to 229.4 billion Chinese yuan.Revenues for fourth-quarter 2025 rose 13% compared to the same period in 2024, hitting 194.4 billion Chinese yuan, ahead of analyst forecasts of 193.5 billion Chinese yuan. Much of Tencent's revenue comes from gaming, but the company has looked to diversify by expanding into other areas, including cloud computing. The company has said it would grow its cloud computing unit into Europe in 2025.Tencent's cloud computing group chief told CNBC in January that it was planning to expand its data center footprint in the Middle East. CNBC has approached the company to ask if those plans had changed in light of the Iran war.— CNBC's Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.Got a confidential news tip? We want to hear from you.Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inboxGet this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services.© 2026 Versant Media, LLC.

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