Tencent shares climb higher on plans to allow paid content on WeChat
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Hong Kong-listed shares in Chinese tech company and WeChat owner Tencent are enjoying a second straight day of solid gains on news that its ubiquitous Chinese app ecosystem will introduce paid content.
Shares rose as much as 2 per cent on Thursday to HK$210.80, having closed 1.9 per cent higher on Wednesday after Chinese financial news site Yicai reported that the company planned to allow official, public-facing accounts to charge readers for access to content.
Tencent had offered the option to offer paid content to a limited number of official accounts, according to the Yicai report, which did not offer details on when the option might be extended to all such users.
The move stands to monetise the content published by official WeChat accounts more directly than the currently available options of running advertisements or sponsored posts. The scale of potential gains is substantial, as Tencent has barely begun to make a profit off its 800m monthly active users.
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