MORE bad news for Tencent Holdings Ltd.: the Internet giant has lost its spot as one of the world’s 10 biggest companies.

After shedding over US$200 billion in market value this year, more than any other company worldwide, Tencent has been replaced by Exxon Mobil Corp. in the top of the rankings based on market capitalization. When its share price hit a record high in January, the Shenzhen-based company was in the top five along with Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc.

Tencent’s nearly 40 percent drop since Jan. 23 is now the deepest after Tencent’s 2004 listing in Hong Kong. The stock has been mired in a downtrend for a record 259 calendar days and Tuesday matched its longest streak of consecutive losses after falling for an eighth session. It has never fared worse relative to global technology shares.

It’s a dramatic reversal for a stock that returned more than 67,000 percent from its initial public offering through January, by far the best performance among large-cap companies globally during that period. While Tencent’s hugely popular online games, WeChat messaging service and budding finance business made it a favorite of both institutional and individual investors, sentiment has soured after the company faced an onslaught of bad news this year.

The first blow came almost nine months ago when global concerns over frothy tech valuations dragged down Tencent and many of its peers. In March, losses accelerated after Tencent warned of weaker margins and one of the company’s oldest shareholders said it was unloading a nearly US$11 billion stake.

That was followed by a wave of selling from Chinese investors, Tencent’s first profit drop in at least a decade, and a regulatory bottleneck on game approvals in China. The stock, which commands the biggest weighting in MSCI Inc.’s global emerging markets index, has taken another beating in recent days amid worries about slowing Chinese growth and a weaker yuan.

(SD-Agencies)