Tencent, Chinese operator of games and WeChat message service, says profit up 59 percent

China's Tencent Holdings Ltd., which operates online games and the popular WeChat messaging service, says its latest quarterly profit rose 59 percent due to strong growth in its mobile business.

Tencent said Wednesday it earned 5.8 billion yuan ($949 million) in the three months ended June 30, or 0.63 yuan (10.2 U.S. cents) per share. Revenue rose 37 percent to 19.7 billion yuan ($3.2 billion).

Tencent and other Chinese Internet services are spending heavily to expand mobile services as the country's Web surfers shift to going online wirelessly through smartphones and tablet computers.

Tencent said online games revenue rose 7 percent over the previous quarter, driven mostly by higher revenue for smartphone games integrated with WeChat.