Chinese tech giant Tencent on Wednesday reported revenues rose 9% in its first-quarter 2026 earnings, but missed analyst expectations.
Here’s how Tencent did in its first-quarter earnings for 2026, compared to LSEG analyst forecast data:
- Revenue: 196.5 billion Chinese yuan ($28.9 billion), compared to estimates of 199 billion Chinese yuan.
- Domestic games revenues: 45.4 billion Chinese yuan, up 6% year-on-year, but a slowdown compared to the 24% rise the segment saw in the first quarter of 2025.
“We started 2026 by making significant initial progress on our new AI products, as well as continuing to utilise AI to grow our existing core businesses,” Ma Huateng, chairman and CEO of Tencent, said in a statement.
“Our core businesses continued to grow their engagement, revenue and profit, providing the cash flow
to fund our AI investments, as well as use cases for future AI deployment,” he added.
Return on AI
Tencent’s fintech and other business services segment brought in 60 billion Chinese yuan in the first three months of the year, up from 55 billion Chinese yuan during the same period a year ago.
Business Services revenues rose by 20% year-on-year, with growth led by increased cloud services revenues supported by higher demand across domestic and international markets, including demand for AI-related services, the company said. It added its AI agent tool WorkBuddy was the most popular agentic service in China.
The firm’s AI investments are already delivering a return, Ivan Su, senior equity analyst at Morningstar, told CNBC.
“An upgraded AI-driven ad recommendation model drove an acceleration in advertising revenue growth to 20%,” he said. “AI spending is tracking in line with the full-year numbers management previously guided to.”
However, Su flagged the slowdown in gaming revenue growth as a negative, adding that the slowdown appeared to be driven mostly by the “timing shift of Chinese New Year affecting revenue recognition rather than any underlying demand problem.”
