Background of Tencent
Tencent is a Chinese multinational company that has entered industries such as Internet-related services and products, entertainment, artificial intelligence, and technology. All of these were mainly started in China but has advanced to become a global brand. Tencent has become the world’s biggest gaming company throughs its huge investments in games and amazing contributions to the gaming industry through their high-end games such as Player Unknown Battle Grounds (PUBG) which has not only gained a top end game reputation in China but has also become one of the most renowned games globally.
With this the company has also gained the name of being the world’s largest social media company by bringing WeChat (picture1) to the social media market, which has gained the status of more than a social media app as it has many more features such an ordering food, ordering a taxi, buying movie tickets and transportation tickets, and many more. Alongside this Tencent also provides many internet services such as instant messenger Tencent QQ (picture2) and one of the largest web portals, QQ.com. It also owns the majority of China’s music services (Tencent Music Entertainment), with more than 700 million active users and 120 million paying subscribers. The company surpassed the market value of US$500 billion in 2018.
Latest News of Tencent
- Tencent has recently again invested in a big British game developer Sumo Digital’s owner, Sumo Group.
- Tencent is also leading a $250 million in a Chinese travel website namely Mafengwo which will help Tencent increased its footprint in the fast-growing travel industry
- Tencent is testing another social media app Youji which it unveils as a new social networking app
- Tencent has announced an overall prize pool of $5 million for its game PUBG mobile in 2020
Through all these investments and strategies, we can see that Tencent is trying its best to enter all the different types of markets, in which it is succeeding. Its name in the gaming industry still stays on the top and grows.
Influences in Hospitality Industry
By using its technology, Tencent also focuses on cloud services which allow the company to expand its business into several areas, such as gaming, education and the hospitality industry. As the biggest competitor of Tencent, Alibaba has built their own hotel recently, however, Tencent claimed that they are not going to have so-called “Tencent hotel”. They are trying to enter in hospitality industry in a different way as their mission, “Value for Users, Tech for Good”.
ShaShangri-La hotels and Tencent company became a partner of 智慧酒店(Smart Hotel) in China in 2018 which using technology to improve the service. For example, reducing check-in and checkout time by using facial recognition or self-service through technology, the deposit by Wechat Pay and personalized VIP service based on the information on Wechat etc.
In 2019 Wanda hotels and resorts also joined into this partnership. In order to satisfy the generation of millennium customers or the new generation, the company has to use technology and information which Tencent company is the biggest resource of it, especially in mainland China.
Technology for Good
All these investments, strategies and businesses of Tencent are trying to connect people with technology. Indeed WeChat app made our life much easier than we can survive with just one smartphone on our hands. Gaming became E-sports that connect people who love games in the world together. Tencent Cloud made the service industry like hotels be able to satisfy their customers in a smarter way. Tencent company is keeping our life simple, smarter and easier.
It seems there is nothing impossible with the technology, however, does it make our life safer? do people feel more secure with the technology? do people feel being connected through technology?
Some people would say that they prefer old way of meeting people in person, or writing letter to each other because that makes them feel more connected. Tencent is an amazing company and a leader of the modern technology era. I hope they not only connect people on unreal world but also in the real world and keep us safe by through technology.
Digital Marketing Les Roches 上海中国 
I see Tencent as a very useful tool for the future of hospitality. Nevertheless, Tencent itself would need to try to expand internationally, creating new strategies for the customer from abroad China, if they want to access to more clientele. Otherwise, the impact of the new technologies made by them will only be used for Chinese citizens in hotels, for example. And considering the growth of internationals traveling to China for leisure and business purposes, Tencent have to promote itself overseas and adapt their technologies based on their habits and needs.
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It seems that there is nothing impossible with technology, however, does it make our lives safer?
Indeed, technology can make our lives much easier, but at the same time, I do not know how safe!
Considering all our data collection, and all the applications already existing in all the equipment we buy from stores, from phones to tablets, TVs and cars, they all have either location or fingerprint or face recognition applications.
It is right that you can control them through settings, whether you use them or not. But as we all want to make our lives easier and keep them comfortable.
So, therefore, I do not know how safe we are, but more comfortable with solitude yes.
Do people feel connected through technology?
Yes, people feel connected through technology, even if you are at the other end of the world, with the help of technology you are connected with your family, friends, or even business partners.
Of course, it can’t be compared to being there in the family or having fun with friends, but you can still solve a lot with technology and because people are connected to each other through technology.
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Before reading this article, I actually had no idea on what was Tencent. I currently use Tencent map APP because it is connected to Wechat, but I would have never expect that the name of Tencent was that massive. This article really well described how powerful this company is and what impact does it have on our life. As a foreigner who lives in China, I can feel the tremendous impact of Wechat on our life here in China. Wechat plays now a big part in the chinese economy and habits. I am looking forward to see the advancement of Tencent in the future and I am curious to see how are they planning to dive into the hospitality industry as Alibaba, their main competitor, already did.
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Thanks Momoe for this great article. I’m wondering how tencent is doing in term of international development ? It seems that they are still mainly focusing on the local market, are they planning in short / medium period to put much more investment abroad ?
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Thank you for your comment, Nicola!
Tencent is now developing the market in Malaysia. they are trying to develop the technology of WeChat pay.
in fact, in Japan, WeChat pay has very strong power in business.
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Seems that all IT magnet in China want to use technology in hospitality and travel industry. Probably it is a big market in China,
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Thank you Momoe, for a useful article. The influence of technology can have a good impact and also have a bad impact. As Momoe mentioned in her article that, “The WeChat application makes our lives much easier than we can survive with only one smartphone in our hands”. Just imagine what will happen if we travel and forget to bring our smartphone? Maybe we won’t be able to buy anything and also use public transportation. So, we must not rely too much on technology in all aspects, because using the old way is also still fairly necessary.
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As a giant company, Tencent has penetrated into all the dimensions of our lives in China. Recently, more doubts have been raised toward the information security. While leading technology companies such as Tencent are collecting our information online, it is obligated for them to reveal more information about how they use customers’ personal information. After all, it’s getting creepy for social media user like us to see internet knows better about us than ourselves.
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