Tencent’s overseas investment exceeds $2B as it ramps up expansion

With its role as a technology giant rather consolidated in the Chinese domestic market, Tencent ramping up its push to the vast overseas market.

The company has already invested over US$2 billion in foreign markets, said Tencent's president Martin Lau. Investing in foreign innovative companies forms an important part of Tencent's going globe strategy, Lau said during 2013 GMIC in Silicon Valley this week, according to a Sohu news report.

After concentrating its business primarily in China for over a decade, Tencent will bring its products to the international market, or cooperating with overseas partners to realize business expansion, Lau said.

A majority of the overseas investments in facts go to overseas startups, he explained. The president added that Tencent not only provide funding to those startup companies, but experiences, which also assist them entering the Chinese market in a bit to help them grow faster.

The company now offers products to overseas markets as well, and its popular messaging and social media app WeChat is a good example, said Lau. Another Sohu news report on Wednesday revealed that WeChat's total registered members have reached 600 million. Overseas users exceeded 100 million which also grows at a fast pace.

Tencent is building up a huge network platform that provides a range of infrastructure for people to interact, Lau said. While talking about the future, he indicated that mobile game business will become a core part to Tencent.

In mid-October, a Tencent tech report revealed that one of its games embedded in WeChat--Tian Tian Pao Ku--has become the first mobile game that monthly income exceeding 100 million yuan (US$16.4 million) in China.