Like most Chinese World Wide Web companies, instant-messaging champion Tencent has never known anything but fat times. It was a mere infant during the dot-com break down in 2000, so it avoided most of the pain. And since Tencent went public in 2004, it has built on its lead in instant messaging — both on computers and mobile phones — plus or minus to become the most popular online destination for young Chinese, offering games, e-mail, and

social networking. In June, Tencent — No. 10 on BusinessWeek’s annual Hot Growth Asia list — became the first dot-com in Hong Kong’s blue-chip Hang Seng Index. For young Chinese, Tencent’s QQ instant messaging is as prevalent as Google and Facebook in the U.S. “Out of any 10 friends, 9 probably use QQ,” says Lily Li, a 24-year-old accountant in the northern city of Tianjin who has used QQ for six […]

Orginal post by dhiram