BEIJING/SINGAPORE, March 18 (Reuters) - Tencent Holdings reported a 13% rise in fourth-quarter revenue on Wednesday, as China's largest social media and gaming company benefited from robust gaming demand and expanding artificial intelligence services.
The Shenzhen-based firm posted revenue of 194.4 billion yuan ($28.3 billion) for the three months to December 31, just above the 193.5 billion yuan forecast by analysts polled by LSEG.
Quarterly net profit was 58.26 billion yuan, compared with an average
estimate of 57.75 billion yuan.
Tencent has been accelerating AI investment funded by its gaming arm as it competes with rivals including Alibaba and ByteDance.
The company is embedding AI across its messaging and payment app WeChat, cloud services and gaming, drawing on an ecosystem of more than one billion users.
Domestic gaming revenue rose 15% to 38.2 billion yuan, while international gaming revenue surged 32% to 21.1 billion yuan. Online advertising revenue climbed 17% to 41.1 billion yuan, boosted by AI-enhanced ad targeting.
Gaming growth was driven by newer titles including "Delta Force" and "Valorant Mobile", alongside established hits "Honor of Kings" and "Peacekeeper Elite".
Revenue in its FinTech and Business Services segment, which includes cloud computing, rose 8% to 60.8 billion yuan. Tencent does not break out cloud revenue separately.
($1 = 6.8752 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Liam Mo and Miyoung Kim. Editing by Himani Sarkar and Mark Potter)
