Cloud computing, gaming bolster Tencent Q4 earnings

The booth of Tencent Cloud during an industry expo in Hong Kong. (Photo by Zhang Wei/China News Service)

Cloud computing and gaming have shored up the performance of Tencent Holdings Ltd, which reported net income of 21.6 billion yuan ($3 billion) in the quarter ending in December 2019.

The country's top gaming and social media operator, which released its latest earnings on Wednesday, saw revenue reach 105.8 billion yuan, up 25 percent year-on-year .

The company has been perceived as a beneficiary of the novel coronavirus outbreak, which confined Chinese to their homes notably during the prolonged Spring Festival break. People have instead resorted to games and other forms of online entertainment.

While data from the first two months of the year haven't been available, online gaming revenue grew by 25 percent annually to 30.3 billion yuan in the fourth quarter. Tencent's international revenue rose to 23 percent of total online gaming revenue in the same period.

Meanwhile, cloud computing and collaborative office services such as Tencent Meeting and WeChat Work have expanded rapidly, especially as the epidemic pushed people to adopt distance working tools.

In 2019, Tencent Cloud's revenue surpassed 17 billion yuan, acquiring 1 million paying clients and boasting over 1 million servers.