Tencent became Asia's first company to exceed a $500 billion market value.
The Chinese technology group reached that landmark in 2017 as its Hong Kong-listed shares climbed strongly. Tencent's market capitalization reflected investor expectations for growth across online games, social networking, digital payments, advertising, and cloud services.
Tencent was founded in 1998 by Pony Ma and several co-founders. Its best-known product, WeChat, began as a messaging service and developed into a multifunctional platform used for communication, payments, media, shopping, and other services.
The $500 billion figure describes the market value of Tencent's publicly traded shares at the time, not the company's annual sales. Tencent's video-game business has also included major international investments, which are sometimes confused with ownership of every game associated with its portfolio.