WeChat's owner Tencent sees profits soar by more than 60%
Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings has posted a record quarterly profit for the three months to March, sending its shares up more than 5% on Thursday. The firm, which owns the popular messaging app WeChat, posted a 61% year-on-year jump in profit, to 23.29bn yuan ($3.7bn; £2.73bn). Tencent's online games, like the hugely popular Honour of Kings, boosted revenues by 26%. WeChat, which is a bit like WhatsApp, is now China's biggest social network. It is also an important source of revenue for Tencent - though the firm continues to remain reasonably vague on those details in its earnings reports. Where does the money come from? Analysts have said that most of Tencent's revenue growth comes from the gaming apps it owns and the purchases that users make within those games. WeChat is integral to that revenue as Tencent uses the platform as a way of getting those games out to users. Together with its Chinese-only version Weixin, WeChat hit one billion monthl...