Tencent outright owns Riot Games, the Los Angeles-based studio responsible for two of the world's biggest games: "League of Legends" and "Teamfight Tactics."
The app also collects a substantial amount of information from its users, including their face and voice, leading some to worry that it could become an instrument for the Chinese government.Īn attendee stops to text next to Epic Games' Fortnite sign at E3, the annual video games expo in Los Angeles. Researchers at Citizen Lab recently found that WeChat has been monitoring sensitive keywords and images sent by users overseas and using the findings to help it train its censorship algorithms in China. "There is nothing in any other country that is comparable, particularly the Facebook properties (Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp) to which WeChat is commonly compared."īut WeChat has also become a surveillance tool, according to experts. "For all intents and purposes WeChat is your phone, and to a far greater extent in China than anywhere else, your phone is everything," analyst and Stratechery founder Ben Thompson wrote in 2017. The app is a major part of everyday life in China, to an extent that users outside the country can't fully comprehend.
Since then, Tencent has added features like video calling, gaming, shopping, the ability to send mobile payments, and the option to hail a taxi or order food.
Tencent launched WeChat in 2011 with the goal of allowing users to send messages over the internet, much like WhatsApp. While WeChat began as a messaging app, it's evolved into much more than that. The order, issued by the US Commerce Department, states that beginning on Sunday, WeChat will not only be unavailable to download and unable to process payments, but it will also be rendered unusable for US users - the order prohibits any internet hosting service from "enabling the functioning or optimization of the mobile application in the US." This could have far-reaching effects on the 3.3 million monthly active WeChat users in the US, as well as for Tencent.Ī WeChat logo is displayed inside TIT Creativity Industry Zone in Guangzhou. Plus, its messaging apps, WeChat and QQ, are used by more than two-thirds of Chinese people, according to Bloomberg. Tencent likely isn't a household name for many Americans, but it's one of the biggest firms in Asia and has a stake in everything from video games like "Fortnite" to blockbuster films, including "Men in Black: International," "Top Gun: Maverick," and "Terminator: Dark Fate." “Mobile games are one of the very few entertainment options during the coronavirus outbreak,” said analyst Nan Lu at researcher Sensor Tower, who said downloads of Tencent games increased by 10.4% year-on-year in February, and revenue increased by 11.8%.The Trump administration announced Friday it will ban WeChat, the social media app owned by mega-conglomerate Tencent, for US users beginning on September 20.
Its gaming titles such as Honour of Kings and Peacekeeper Elite as well as video streaming services saw an uplift in downloads as China’s government urged millions of people to stay at home and away from crowded places to curb the virus’ spread. In a fourth-quarter earnings report that struck a cautious tone over the impact the epidemic would have on its business, Tencent was more optimistic than most businesses have been. Tencent’s businesses are mainly online, positioning it uniquely against other tech giants such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd that focus on e-commerce and whose supply chains have been severely disrupted by the outbreak which began in China. FILE PHOTO: People visit Tencent's booth at the World 5G Exhibition in Beijing, China November 22, 2019.
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