China’s Tencent has posted a quarterly profit that halved from a year ago.
Tencent also recorded no revenue growth while warning that advertisers in consumer, eCommerce and travel businesses have slashed spending.
Revenue totalled 135.5 billion yuan ($20.08 billion) in the quarter ended March, versus 135.3 billion yuan in the same quarter last year.
Analysts had expected an average estimate of 141 billion yuan.
Tencent, operator of the WeChat messaging platform and the world’s largest video game company, said profit attributable to equity holders of the company for the quarter fell 51%.
It was the biggest profit decline since the company went public in 2004.
Tencent’s market value has more than halved from its peak of HK$7.3 trillion ($930 billion) in February 2021 to about $451 billion now, but it remains the country’s most valuable company.
The Shenzhen-based tech giant has been impacted by user spending on games normalising after a surge over the past two years. Meanwhile, a COVID resurgence in China has also dampened payment activities.
Advertising sales have declined sharply, falling 18% in the first quarter.
Tencent’s domestic game revenue dropped 1% in the first quarter while its international game revenue saw a 4% rise.
