During Tencent’s third-quarter performance call this week, Pony Ma, chairman, and CEO of the Chinese payments and social media behemoth, remarked that the metaverse is “extremely exciting, but a little bit ambiguous,” and “an opportunity that truly adds growth.”
Tencent’s revenue growth fell short of market forecasts despite a year-over-year increase of 13%. This was despite China’s new limitations on online gaming.
According to Ma’s remarks, Tencent is putting a lot of money into virtual reality and the metaverse. It was revealed in an internal memo released in October that the Timi Studio Group was creating a new studio dedicated to metaverse development; one employee corroborated the memo’s claims. Multiple Chinese media outlets reported in September that Tencent was employing hundreds of personnel for projects that looked to be tied to the metaverse.
“Games and social networking may open the door to the metaverse,” said Tencent CEO Martin Lau in a post-earnings teleconference. It’s clear that Lau and his team believe that they have the necessary technology and capabilities to take on the metaverse potential.
In addition to WeChat, Tencent owns famous games like “Call of Duty: Warzone” and “League of Legends,” which have more than 1.3 billion players globally. Epic Games, the company behind “Fortnite,” is owned by Tencent.
China’s recent limits on gaming have had an impact on Tencent’s overall revenue growth, which has slowed. There was an increase of 13% year-over-year YoY in revenue, but it fell short of market forecasts of 145.4 billion yuan (US$22.7 billion) in the third quarter, according to the most recent figures.
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