Tencent became Asia’s first company to surpass $500 billion in market capitalization in 2017.
Tencent crossed the $500 billion valuation mark in November 2017 as investors responded to strong growth in its digital businesses. The company’s shares are listed in Hong Kong, and its market value made it one of the world’s largest technology companies.
Tencent’s expansion was built around WeChat, its widely used messaging and mobile-services platform, as well as online games, digital payments, advertising, and cloud services. Its gaming division became especially influential internationally through both internal development and investments in other studios.
The milestone is sometimes confused with Alibaba’s later market-value records. Tencent and Alibaba are both major Chinese technology companies, but they developed around different core platforms: Tencent around social communication and entertainment, and Alibaba around commerce.