TENCENT Holdings released its fourth quarter and full-year 2025 financial results on March 18. The full-year revenue for its gaming business reached 241.6 billion yuan, representing a 22% year-on-year increase. Revenue from the domestic market grew 18% annually to 164.2 billion yuan. The international market also saw benefits from the sustained growth of evergreen titles and the rapid expansion of content-driven games, with annual revenue exceeding the $10 billion milestone for the first time, setting a new historical record.
The financial report highlighted the effects and progress of AI in accelerating game content production, improving user experience, and enhancing marketing efficiency. According to the report, several TENCENT games, including Honor of Kings, Peacekeeper Elite, Delta Action, and VALORANT: Source Operation, have already integrated AI technologies.
During the earnings call on the evening of March 18, TENCENT Chairman Ma Huateng stated that AI has delivered significant value in game content development, user credibility enhancement, and marketing efficiency conversion.
TENCENT President Martin Lau said that the company's gaming business remains committed to building powerful game products, and AI technology will serve as a key driver, enabling more games to be launched at a faster pace.
"The gaming industry has clearly entered a phase of oversupply," Lau noted. "Approximately 200,000 new games are launched on mobile platforms annually, with an additional 18,000 released on Apple's platform. The core constraint on industry development is no longer the quantity of supply, but rather the high quality and innovation of games, and whether they can surpass existing top-tier titles. This requires support from cutting-edge technology and the full utilization of human creativity." Lau emphasized that the proliferation of AI can not only bring more possibilities to game development but also free up users' time.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, TENCENT's domestic game revenue increased 15% year-on-year to 38.2 billion yuan, driven by revenue growth from Delta Action and the VALORANT series (on PC and mobile), as well as incremental revenue contributions from Wuthering Waves. International game revenue grew 32% year-on-year to 21.1 billion yuan, primarily benefiting from revenue growth from Supercell's games and PUBG MOBILE, alongside overseas incremental revenue from Wuthering Waves.
In the domestic market, TENCENT's evergreen titles such as Honor of Kings and Peacekeeper Elite continued to provide stable revenue contributions. The Chinese version of VALORANT surpassed 50 million monthly active users across both PC and mobile platforms, and the newly launched Lost Future attracted millions of daily active users immediately upon release.
TENCENT's continued focus on shooter games also helped make this genre one of the fastest-growing categories in the domestic market in 2025.
According to data from the Game Publishing Committee, among the top 100 revenue-generating products in China in 2025, shooter mobile games, while accounting for only 7% of the total number, contributed 18.29% of the revenue, with annual incremental revenue approaching 10 billion yuan.
In the international gaming market, TENCENT achieved "phased results" in 2025, as its overseas invested studios entered a period of capacity release.
TENCENT stated in its financial report that Supercell experienced "one of its best years in history," with Clash Royale achieving revenue growth against the trend through continuous optimization. PUBG Mobile performed steadily, Wuthering Waves received excellent overseas reception, and Digital Extreme's Warframe reached a recent peak in concurrent users, becoming a new source of incremental revenue for the international gaming business.
Addressing the externally focused topic of "adjustments to Apple's App Store revenue share policy," TENCENT management responded during the earnings call that the company will continue to maintain efficient collaboration with game developers and partners to accelerate the publishing process. Management also revealed that the revenue share from the game publishing segment is currently not high. Using mini-games as an example, related revenue sharing is mostly calculated based on gross revenue, and App Store channel costs are directly passed on to the platform side.
According to a recent announcement from Apple, commission rates in the China App Store have been reduced: the standard commission rate for in-app purchases and paid apps will be lowered from 30% to 25%; the commission rate for three categories—small developers, mini-programs, and auto-renewable subscriptions—will be reduced from 15% to 12%.
TENCENT stated that Apple's commitment to providing Chinese developers with fair treatment equal to that of global developers is a positive change for the industry. The company clarified that incremental profits resulting from the rate reduction will be prioritized for "investment in new AI products" to continuously strengthen technological and content innovation capabilities.
Martin Lau described this adjustment as "a very good start." Based on this positive development, TENCENT looks forward to further deepening cooperation with Apple to jointly build a healthier, more vibrant application ecosystem and developer environment, promoting long-term, healthy industry development.
AI competition has now entered a phase focused on "application." Due to its interactive nature, real-time feedback mechanisms, and digital content iteration needs, gaming is becoming one of the most promising scenarios for AI implementation.
During the earnings call, TENCENT management pointed out that the current industry application of AI is still concentrated on upgrading existing content, accelerating creation, and improving quality, but it has not yet achieved "developing entirely new games from scratch using AI," a direction that holds vast exploration potential.
Meanwhile, AI has already demonstrated broad value in scenarios such as graphics rendering, gameplay design, and player companionship. The technology implementation by TENCENT Interactive Entertainment in related fields is highly aligned with industry consensus, believing that "AI can provide users with better companions within games."
Regarding whether AI will spur a new wave of game supply explosion, TENCENT management直言 cautioned the industry to be wary of a quantity bubble. "If the importance of publishing is overly emphasized while the importance of research and development is weakened, the gaming industry will remain in a state of oversupply."
TENCENT believes that the current annual number of newly launched games is already substantial. If the focus is solely on scale expansion, a significant future increase in volume may not necessarily bring effective incremental growth, nor is it the goal for the industry's healthy development. The core success factor for the gaming industry lies in balancing the value of R&D and publishing, rather than merely pursuing product quantity.
"Achieving this requires the most talented people, supported by the best technology," the management representative stated. TENCENT will continue to be driven by both top talent and AI technology, focusing on how to make high-quality games consistently successful and create more hit titles, pushing the gaming industry from "quantity growth" towards "quality growth" for long-term sustainable development.
Martin Lau also stated that AI is not poised to disrupt the gaming industry, but is instead one of the core technologies that can benefit the industry the most. AI will significantly free up time for both developers and users, giving users more leisure time to invest in games. "Against the backdrop of AI普及, the gaming industry has a very certain development prospect," with solid support for growth on the demand side.
Lau believes that AI will重构 the game development toolchain and the industry landscape. AI-driven, high-quality development tools will be made available to the entire industry, serving both new developers and empowering mature teams and operators of long-running hit titles. "Developers with resources and large player bases can utilize these tools more fully to further increase output scale and create more value." Industry resources and technological advantages will tend to concentrate towards entities capable of long-term operation and that are agile in adopting new technologies.
He also emphasized that the core value of AI lies in assisting with continuous product iteration, enhancing experiences, and extending lifecycles. Game concepts require constant refinement, and "AI can indeed发挥 this value," helping high-quality games achieve long-term vitality and driving the industry from quantity expansion to quality improvement.