Chinese tech giant Tencent posted solid sales growth during the fourth quarter of 2019, saying that it expects revenues from its games business to help it weather the coronavirus epidemic, which has paralysed the world’s second-biggest economy in the early months of this year.
The company’s well-diversified and gaming-heavy business is expected to hold up better than that of its chief rival Alibaba, which last month said that revenues at its key Tmall and Taobao businesses would shrink in the first quarter as its merchants and courier companies struggled with a lack of manpower.
Tencent’s management said on Wednesday that the millions of people in China self-isolating at home had spent an increasing portion of their time on its online games, video, music and online reading services.