Tencent reports 37.4 percent rise in net profit
Tencent Holdings reported a 37.4 percent rise in first-quarter profit, slightly higher than analysts' estimates, boosted by strong sales of online advertising and games.
_0">First-quarter net profit rose to 4.0 billion yuan ($645 million) from 2.9 billion yuan a year earlier, Tencent said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Wednesday.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting on average a 3.89 billion yuan profit.
Major gaming titles such as "League of Legends" helped increase revenues by 40.4 percent to 13.5 billion yuan in the January-March period, beating analysts' estimates of 12.9 billion yuan.
Tencent shares closed up 1.7 percent before the results were announced, beating a 0.5 percent rise for the Hang Seng Index . Tencent shares are up about 10 percent since the start of the year, outperforming a mostly flat Hang Seng Index.
The company is more than 30 percent owned by South African media group Naspers Ltd. (Reporting by Lee Chyen Yee; editing by Miral Fahmy)
