China’s Tencent taps US for advertising to boost WeChat revenue growth
Tencent is lagging behind rivals Alibaba and Baidu in the domestic digital advertising market, according to eMarketer
Tencent Holdings, the company behind China’s behemoth WeChat app, is expanding to the US – not to add overseas users but to find advertisers – as it looks beyond the competitive domestic digital advertising market for growth.
The Shenzhen-headquartered tech giant will allow US brands to directly market to Chinese consumers and tourists on its platforms, including the widely popular social media app WeChat and messaging service QQ, opening a new advertising bureau based in the US two weeks ago.
This signals the latest attempt by Tencent, which lags behind Baidu and Alibaba in the domestic digital advertising market, to capitalise on WeChat and move away from its reliance on online games to generate profits.
“For the first time, we are making it possible for US brands to directly reach this audience through sophisticated targeting,” Poshu Yeung, the company’s vice-president of international business, said in a statement.
Speaking at a conference in New York last week, Benny Ho, senior director of Tencent’s international business, said the company aims to attract US firms wanting to build brand awareness and increase sales among consumers in mainland China and those who travel to the US to shop.