TheChek News Flow

Tech group forecasts uptick in online businesses as consumer spending rises

Chinese tech group Tencent reversed two successive quarters of revenue declines and said it was “well positioned” to benefit from the ending of the country’s zero-Covid policy.

The tech group posted quarterly revenue of Rmb145bn ($21bn) in the three months to December, a 0.5 per cent increase from the same period a year earlier and in line with analysts’ forecasts. Tencent’s net profit rose 19 per cent to Rmb29.7bn, slightly above analysts’ estimates.

Chief executive Pony Ma struck an optimistic tone on Wednesday, saying the company was positioned to “benefit from” a “rebound in China[’s] economic growth which our users’ activity suggests is now under way”.

The company’s sales were subdued to the end of 2022 as China emerged from zero-Covid restrictions, but its fintech arm has since experienced “double-digit growth” in the first quarter of this year as consumers headed back to the shops as China reopened.

Ma’s upbeat tone comes after Beijing communicated to investors that it was easing its regulatory crackdown on its internet giants in a bid to promote growth.

Tencent, China’s most valuable company by market capitalisation, has been downsizing its internet empire after regulators pressured it to reduce the size of its footprint in a broader anti-monopoly crackdown. During its past financial results in November, Tencent announced it would divest most of its $22bn stake in delivery service Meituan to produce a dividend for shareholders. At the end of 2022, the value of Tencent’s shareholdings in its portfolio listed companies was $84bn.

“In 2022, we did a good job reducing costs and increasing efficiencies. In 2023, we will continue in this direction. It is necessary to reduce fat and increase muscle,” Ma said.

Tencent has been ramping up investment in Channels, the short video function embedded in its ubiquitous super app WeChat, after falling behind the surging popularity of ByteDance’s Douyin platform, the sister app of TikTok. That investment has seen time spent on WeChat video accounts triple in 2022 compared with the previous year, the company said on Wednesday.

While Tencent’s domestic gaming revenue fell 6 per cent to Rmb27.9bn, its acquisitions of overseas gaming studios helped revenue from international gaming grow 5 per cent to Rmb13.9bn, driven by the success of the popular Valorant and League of Legends franchises.

“Games growth was solid, and better than expected fourth-quarter billings growth should bode well for revenues at the start of 2023,” said Robin Zhu, China internet analyst at Bernstein. He added that there was a “positive trajectory” in Tencent’s overseas gaming, despite foreign currency headwinds in the fourth quarter, which pushed down revenue from the sector.

Tencent bought back Rmb12bn of shares in its fourth quarter.

It also announced that its president and top dealmaker Martin Lau would rotate off the board at its annual meeting this year, but he would remain as president and chair of the investment committee.

Succession Season 4 puts the Roys on the brink of battle royale — review

The final act of the peerless comedy reaches new highs, lows and some surprising human emotions

Hear that? That’s the sound of Logan Roy “playing the old f.ck-trombone” and getting into people’s heads. But this time, the familiar tune has an elegiac quality.

Unlike Roy, Succession creator Jesse Armstrong knows when to call it a day. In January the showrunner announced that he was bringing his peerless family-business saga to a close after a fourth and final act, perhaps also drawing the curtain on “peak TV” in the process. “We could go on for ages,” he told the New Yorker, “or we could go out sort of strong.”

The opening episodes of the concluding series are better than sort of strong; they find the series reaching new dramatic heights and new depths of emotion. While the plotting is even punchier as it breaks from the cyclical narratives of previous seasons, the story also features some moments of sincere tenderness and (very precarious) unity. Be prepared for unexpectedly meaningful embraces, hand-holding and one particularly touching exchange of insults.

That said, scheming, self-interest and searing put-downs still abound. In fact, Logan (Brian Cox) vows to be “a bit more f.cking aggressive”, which makes you wonder what he calls carving his children out of the business with the help of his son-in-law. Picking up after that third series finale — in which the toadying Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) betrayed his wife Shiv (Sarah Snook) and her brothers Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) to side with Logan — we now find the Roys on the brink of a full-blown battle royale.

Having won the latest showdown, Logan seems at a total loss. Feeling listless and ruminative at a joyless birthday party in New York, he asks the assembled sycophants to roast him. Trust the ever-artless Greg (Nicholas Braun) to take the bait. “Where’s all your kids, Uncle Logan, on your big birthday?” he asks — and he doesn’t mean eldest son Connor (Alan Ruck), who is bumbling around downstairs.

The other three are in Los Angeles collaborating on a “modern media” outlet. After years of sabotaging one another, the siblings initially appear energised by the prospect of being the “new-gen Roys”, independent of — and soon challenging — their father. The ever-melancholy Kendall is smiling and even inveterate screw-up Roman has, God help us, become sensible and focused.

To say more about how things play out (Armstrong has expressly forbidden it) would diminish the impact of the masterful, sometimes daring storytelling, which once again occupies a unique space between Shakespearean grandeur and crude, excruciating comedy. What shouldn’t go unsaid, despite being self-evident, is just how exquisite the performances are across the board. An entire review could be dedicated to how much Culkin conveys with one goofy look, Strong with one stutter, Snook with one thin smile, and Cox with one growled “f.ck off”.

The Roys may be an odious clan, but they will be sorely missed.

★★★★★

Episode 1 airs on HBO in the US on March 26 and Sky Atlantic in the UK on March 27. New episodes weekly

Economists and the Bank of England had forecast a decline from January to 9.9%

UK inflation unexpectedly accelerated in February, adding to pressure on the Bank of England to raise interest rates again at its meeting on Thursday.

The annual rate of consumer price inflation rose to 10.4 per cent in February, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday. That was up from 10.1 per cent in January and higher than the 9.9 per cent forecast by the Bank of England and economists polled by Reuters.

Core inflation, which strips out volatile food, energy, alcohol and tobacco prices, also rose sharply to 6.2 per cent in February, up from 5.8 per cent the previous month. That exceeded economists’ expectations of a slowdown to 5.7 per cent.

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