Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings saw its revenue in 2022 slightly drop by 1 percent to 554 billion yuan (US$81 billion), with net profit down 16 percent to 188 billion yuan. In Q4, the company’s Non-IFRS net profit grew 19 percent year on year to 29.7 billion yuan, beating market expectations.

Tencent said the daily time spent on WeChat continues to rise, and while using WeChat, people have spent more time browsing channels and mini programs. Trade volume on mini programs, “sub-applications” within WeChat that provide features such as e-commerce, exceeded 1 trillion yuan last year. More than 190 million people watched the 2023 Spring Festival Gala via the channel on WeChat.

In a conference call Wednesday after the company released its financial report, Martin Lau, president of Tencent, said he is to step down from the board and hand over the chair to ZHANG Xiulan, a social welfare scholar and a female independent non-executive. Lau will remain as company president and chairman of its investment committee.