Before the new year, Tencent was killing it: By January, the Chinese tech firm’s share price hit a record high with a market valuation of more than $500B to become one of Asia’s largest companies.
But the rocket ship credited for creating many popular video games and WeChat has plummeted for the last 261(ish) days, losing more than $250B in market value.
Even worse? The 44% decline in share price means that Tencent is no longer one of the world’s 10 largest companies.
The Chinese government giveth and taketh away
One big reason for the slash-fest is that, since March, the Chinese government put a hold on new video game releases amid rising concern of video game addiction in kids.
The move hit Tencent hard, costing China’s largest gaming company (in the world’s largest gaming market) $1.5B in Q2 sales, and $160B in market cap since the beginning 2018.
How to lose a billion in 10 days
Of course, it’s also a bad time for tech shares (see above story). The Chinese internet giant is feelin’ it like all the others, closing 6.8% lower in Hong Kong on Thursday — its second-worst day in 7 years.
Tencent lost nearly 20% of its market share in the last 10 days alone.