www.nasdaq.com/article/...h-stocks-to-buy-in-december-cm889361Steve Symington (Tencent Holdings): Arguably no tech trends are as promising for early investors as social media and online gaming right now. With monthly
active users for its WeChat platform (called Weixin in China) climbing 16% year over year to a whopping 980 million at the end of last quarter, Tencent Holdings is one of the best ways to profit from both.
The Chinese tech giant saw
revenue climb an incredible 61.5% year over year last quarter, to $9.825 billion, which translated to 47% growth in adjusted earnings to $2.572 billion, or $0.27 per share. These results absolutely crushed Wall Street's expectations .
The broad momentum of Tencent's underlying business is even more impressive.
Top-line growth included a 48% increase from online advertising, to $1.66 billion, and a 51% jump in value-added services revenue, to $6.35 billion. Within the latter, online games revenue skyrocketed 48%, thanks to hit titles like League of Legends and Clash of Clans .
Social networks revenue climbed 56%, thanks to the rollouts of new features like live broadcasting, subscription video on-demand, and virtual item sales. Tencent also enjoyed the momentum of its new cloud and payment services, where revenue popped more than 140% to $1.82 billion last quarter.
If that wasn't enough, Tencent has diversified in recent years by investing significant (minority) stakes in other up-and-coming businesses, including Tesla , Snap , Activision Blizzard , and many others......