Among Chinese tech giant Tencent’s bumper first quarter results was a reference to the success of its CRM product, Tencent Qidian.
The success was partly ascribed to the company continuing to leverage its strengths in its PaaS and SaaS businesses, of which CRM is a part.
Martin Lau, Tencent President, said in an earnings call: “On the platform and software front, we provide the leading CRM, collaboration, and productivity solutions in the market where those services are highly valued by enterprises. After a period of disruption due to COVID-19, our cloud services move back to an above-industry revenue growth rate in the first quarter.
“To double down on these trends, we’re increasing headcounts for product development to enhance our service offering and also expanding our sales team to facilitate client acquisitions and service.”
Tencent beat estimates to post profits up by 65% compared to the same quarter last year, reaching some $7.4bn. Revenue, meanwhile, was up by 25% to $20.6bn.
James Mitchell, Tencent Chief Strategy Officer, said: “For business services, revenue grew at a healthy rate year on year benefiting from resumed project deployment and robust demand from industries including enterprise software and online video provision.
“Increased customer uptake of our security communication and CRM solutions drove notable growth in our PaaS and SaaS revenue, both absolutely and its proportion of our overall business services revenue. Our cloud marketplace now includes thousands of partners software-as-a-service products.”
The success is a welcome boost after recent pressure on the company, which has been targeted as part of Chinese antitrust efforts, with continuing crackdowns on big tech firms.
Ma Huateng, Chairman and CEO of Tencent, said: “During the first quarter, we delivered solid growth across our businesses while continuing to enhance our products and services. As we look into the future, we see expanding opportunities in the various verticals in which we operate, enabled by technology innovation and increasing acceptance of digital solutions among users and businesses. As a result, we are stepping up our investment in areas including business services and enterprise software, high-production-value games, and short-form video.
“In addition, as a technology company serving a broad base of users and enterprises, we recognise our social responsibility and the opportunities to create significant social value through innovations. We believe that our recent strategic upgrade and establishment of a Sustainable Social Value Organisation will allow us to make an even more positive impact to the society, and usher in a new phase of development for Tencent.”
