Tencent chairman and CEO Pony Ma highlighted a return to double-digit revenue growth in Q1, fuelled by a recovery in domestic consumption, and international games and advertising.

On its earnings call, Ma noted Tencent is investing in AI capabilities and cloud infrastructure, tipping the former to bolster its customer service along with broader societal benefits.

President Martin Lau noted a programme to protect younger users resulted in “time spent and gross receipts from users aged under 18 reduced by 96 per cent and 90 per cent from three years ago, respectively”.

Lau noted the regulatory environment continues to trend toward becoming normalised, with the government focused on economic development, along with promoting development of the digital economy and industry.

Net profit grew 10 per cent year-on-year to CNY25.8 billion ($3.7 billion) and revenue 11 per cent to CNY150 billion.

Online advertising sales increased 17 per cent to CNY21 billion, attributed to the addition of video accounts as a new stream, growth in activities within Mini Programmes and recovery in mobile.

Fintech and business services revenue increased 14 per cent to CNY48.7 billion.

Combined monthly active users (MAUs) of messaging service WeChat and Chinese version Weixin were up 2 per cent to 1.3 billion.

QQ mobile messaging platform MAUs rose 6 per cent to 597 million.

Capex was down 37 per cent to CNY4.4 billion.

R&D expenses were flat at CNY15.2 billion.

Social networks revenue rose 6 per cent to CNY31 billion.

International games revenue grew 25 per cent to CNY13.2 billion and domestic 6 per cent to CNY35.1 billion.