"Commercial payment activities have been weak since mid-March 2022, due to the resurgence of COVID-19 in several cities in China," Tencent said in an earnings release Wednesday.
Tencent operates WeChat, one of China's two dominant mobile payment apps. WeChat, known domestically as Weixin, is also the prevailing messaging and social network platform in China. Tencent is trying to build up a short-video and e-commerce business within the app. On a year-on-year basis, fintech services revenue grew at a moderated pace, while business services declined, Tencent said, without disclosing specific figures.missed FactSet estimates by 3.41 billion yuan and marked a sharp slowdown from a 25% increase in the fourth quarter of 2021.
The business segment that includes gaming, Tencent's biggest source of revenue, generated a disappointing 72.74 billion yuan in first quarter revenue, up mildly from the prior quarter and the year-ago period. That reflected challenges fromTencent owns popular online games such as League of Legends and Honor of Kings.The company said they expect to receive game licenses in the future but that China would approve fewer games overall.