Chinese Internet giant Tencent knocked Facebook off the pedestal to become the world’s fifth-largest company in terms of market value on Tuesday.
The news came after the Shenzhen-based company beat its rival Alibaba to become the first Asian tech firm to reach the $500 billion valuation mark on Monday, rubbing shoulders with industry titans Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook.
Tencent shares rose by 2.4 per cent to finish at a high of 430 Hong Kong dollars (US$55.04) after peaking at HK$439.6 in the morning session on Tuesday, taking the four-day gain to more than 12 per cent.
The tech giant, which made its mark with its popular WeChat social media service, added roughly $11.5 billion in market capitalisation during Tuesday’s trading. Its $522.8 billion market valuation is now just behind Amazon’s and has overtaken Facebook to rank fifth in an elite club of the world’s top six businesses to have reached the market capitalisation milestone of $500 billion.
First listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2004, the 19-year-old company’s shares have more than doubled in price this year, putting the benchmark Hang Seng Index on course to become the world’s best performing gauge.
Bolstered by Tencent’s rally on Tuesday, the Hang Seng extended its winning streak to a third straight session, up by 1.9 per cent, or 557.8 points, to close at a 10-year high of 29,818.1 points after crossing the 29,000-point threshold on Friday.
“With more than twice the share price this year and a market capitalisation of over $500 billion, Tencent stands as an ‘anchor’ of the Hang Seng Index,” said Fielding Chen Shiyuan, Hong Kong-based Asia economist at Bloomberg Intelligence. “The market just wonders how far it will go to hit another new record high, and how much further gains the Hang Seng Index is set for on the back of such a tech behemoth.”
The meteoric rise of Tencent’s share price was buoyed by its new mobile game, Glorious Mission, one of the country’s two survival games. It was made available to a section of the public for testing on Tuesday, with more than 30 million pre-registrations.
The new game is expected to take the baton from top-grossing mobile game King of Glory, also known as Honor of Kings, to become the next growth engine for the social-media and gaming giant.