Tencent became the first Asian company to exceed a $500 billion market value in 2017.
Tencent crossed the milestone on November 20, 2017, after a major rise in its Hong Kong-listed shares. The company’s businesses included the WeChat messaging platform, online games, digital payments, advertising, and cloud services.
The achievement placed Tencent among the world’s largest technology companies and briefly made it more valuable than Facebook by market capitalization. The comparison concerned listed equity value, not revenue or the number of users.
Tencent is often confused with Alibaba because both are major Chinese technology groups. Alibaba is primarily associated with e-commerce and cloud computing, while Tencent’s best-known consumer products include WeChat and its large online-gaming business.