Tencent Holdings reported second-quarter revenue of RMB184.5 billion (US$25.7 billion), a 15 percent increase from a year earlier and ahead of the RMB178.9 billion analysts had expected. Net income rose 17 percent to RMB55.6 billion, while non-IFRS profit, the company’s preferred measure, gained 10 percent to RMB63.05 billion. Games remained the main growth driver. Domestic titles such as Honor of Kings and Peacekeeper Elite lifted mainland games revenue 17 percent to RMB40.4 billion, and international games sales surged 35 percent to RMB18.8 billion on the success of releases including Delta Force. Marketing-services revenue, helped by AI-driven ad-targeting across WeChat and other platforms, climbed 20 percent to RMB35.8 billion. Management said wider use of generative-AI tools is accelerating content production, boosting user engagement and improving advertising conversion. Capital expenditure more than doubled to RMB19.1 billion, with the bulk devoted to chips and data-centre capacity for Tencent’s Hunyuan large-language model and other AI workloads. Weixin/WeChat, China’s dominant super-app, ended June with 1.4 billion monthly active users, underpinning the company’s advertising, payments and mini-program ecosystems. Tencent added that higher margins in gaming and social-media services are giving it “dry powder” to fund AI expansion amid intensifying global competition. Shares in Hong Kong rose to their highest level since 2021 after the earnings beat, extending their year-to-date advance to about 45 percent. Analysts said the results reinforce expectations that Tencent’s entertainment franchises and AI investments can sustain double-digit top-line growth even as China’s macro outlook remains uncertain.