Tencent Holdings Ltd. wants you to know that it’s not purely a domestic play. The purveyor of social media and games has started to show the world how much it makes outside of mainland China. It needs to demonstrate to investors that there’s growth to be found yonder.
Amid a raft of domestic regulatory and macroeconomic struggles, China’s largest company posted its slowest expansion on record; and it forecast continued challenges ahead.
With a mere 13% increase, revenue for the third-quarter was rather pedestrian and the biggest miss in more than two years. Only its fintech and business services unit showed much strength, climbing 30% thanks to higher commercial payments and the consolidation of an online car-sales unit it took private last year. Unfortunately, that same division is a laggard when it comes to profitability, so it punches below its weight when contributing to overall profits.