China's Tencent Posts 58% Jump in First-Quarter Profit

Tencent Holdings Ltd. reported a 58% rise in net profit for the first quarter, thanks to solid revenue growth in its mobile-game and advertising businesses.

China's biggest social-network and online-games company Wednesday posted a net profit of 14.48 billion yuan ($2.1 billion), up from 9.18 billion yuan a year earlier and beating the 13.18 billion yuan forecast of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

Revenue was up 55%, to 49.55 billion yuan from 32 billion yuan a year earlier, driven by stronger growth from smartphone and PC games, payment-related services, digital content and online advertising.

Tencent, which operates WeChat and QQ--two of China's most popular platforms for messaging and social networking--generates revenue by offering games and other services through the two and by placing ads on them.

Write to Joanne Chiu at joanne.chiu@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 17, 2017 05:50 ET (09:50 GMT)