Tencent Earnings: Remarkable Start to 2025, but AI Investments Will Take Time to Deliver Returns

Near-term margin expansion is limited as a result.

Ivan Su 15 May, 2025 | 1:59PM
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A man walks at the regional headquarters of Tencent Group in Shanghai, China Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. Tencent disclosed it has fired over a hundred employees in 2024 during internal anti-corruption investigations.

Editor's Note: This analysis was originally published as a stock note by Morningstar Equity Research.

This analysis was originally published as a stock note by Morningstar Equity Research.

Key Morningstar Metrics for Tencent Holdings


What We Thought of Tencent Holdings’ Earnings

Tencent’s 00700 first-quarter revenue and adjusted operating profit grew by 13% and 18% year on year, respectively, led by the games and advertising businesses. The company also conducted HKD 17 billion in share buybacks, progressing toward its full-year target of at least HKD 80 billion.

Why it matters: Tencent’s earnings exceeded our estimates, but during the earnings call, management noted that some of its artificial intelligence investments may take a year or two to generate returns, limiting the firm’s near-term margin expansion.

Despite management’s strong belief that these AI projects will create long-term shareholder value, the lack of a clear timeline for integrating AI into WeChat and monetizing its AI chatbot prevents us from forecasting meaningful returns on investment.

We are leaving our forecasts largely unchanged despite the robust results. That said, we believe Tencent’s current share price already reflects limited incremental earnings from AI, meaning any eventual upside from these investments could come as a positive surprise to investors.

The bottom line: We maintain wide-moat Tencent’s fair value estimate at HKD 710. Shares currently trade at a 2025 core P/E multiple of 19 times, reflecting a 27% upside to our valuation.

We believe core P/E is a better valuation metric than the headline P/E ratio, as it excludes equity investment gains from profit and their corresponding value from Tencent’s market capitalization.

Big picture: Tencent’s earnings highlights its ability to capitalize on powerful network effects. While user numbers remained largely stable, increased engagement and time spent have driven strong ad revenue growth of 20%, with the highest growth from video accounts, search, and mini programs.

These new products and services are seamlessly integrated into WeChat’s existing infrastructure, requiring minimal upfront investment and incurring low customer acquisition costs. Hence, incremental sales translate into higher profit margins.


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Ivan Su  is an equity analyst for Morningstar.

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