SHENZHEN-BASED Internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. will invest more in its digital content businesses spanning publishing to film-making after its third quarter net profit surpassed expectations Wednesday.

Tencent, Asia’s most valuable company with a market capitalization of US$472 billion, is looking to invest more in its digital content and better integrate its products across platforms in order to draw more time from more paying customers, president Martin Lau said on an earnings call late Wednesday.

Analysts said it was a move toward helping Tencent better monetize its various content platforms that dominate Chinese mobile users’ daily life through increased subscription and advertising revenue.

Tencent’s superapp WeChat now has 980 million monthly active users, with 38 billion messages sent daily.

Its Youtube equivalent, Tencent Video, has become the video streaming service with the largest paying subscriber base in China, at 43 million subscriptions, Lau said. Tencent will invest in online video through original content production or IP purchase, despite it being “an unprofitable sector,” Lau said, because it is core to Tencent’s cross-media intellectual property strategy and increases engagement time.

Tencent recently listed several subsidiaries on stock exchanges in Hong Kong and the United States in a slew of stellar initial public offerings (IPOs).

Tencent’s net profit for the three months ended September rose 69 percent to 18 billion yuan (US$2.7 billion). Lau said more IPOs may come, but spinoffs similar to publishing arm China Literature will not be the “norm.” (SD-Agencies)