These paid services later morphed into a multi-tiered membership system that gave users different levels of privilege according to how much money they were willing to shell out.īesides being an early digital currency laboratory, QQ was also where Tencent laid the first brick of its gaming empire. Introduced in 2000, it allowed users to pay for features such as QQ Show, which lets them customise their avatars and account names. One early attempt was a virtual currency called QQ Coin. The fast-growing user base enabled Tencent to explore new revenue streams.

Photo: Bloombergīuilding on its reputation as a relatively stable service, QQ drew a million users within nine months, according to Tencent's authorised biography published in 2017. Photo: Bloomberg alt=QQ's logo is a scarf-wearing penguin, which earned Tencent its Chinese internet nickname 'penguin factory'. QQ's logo is a scarf-wearing penguin, which earned Tencent its Chinese internet nickname 'penguin factory'. It quickly gained popularity among the country's early internet adopters who were looking for a reliable way to connect and communicate. The start-up's first product was OICQ, one of several Chinese instant messaging programmes similar to Israel's then-popular ICQ.Īfter a legal complaint from AOL, which had acquired ICQ the previous year, Tencent renamed its programme QQ in 2000.

He quit his job at China Motion Telecom and founded Tencent with a group of fellow alumni from Shenzhen University. Pony Ma Huateng, a 27-year-old software engineer, spotted an opportunity in the booming space. The number of web users had ballooned to more than 2 million from a paltry 1,600 just four years earlier. The country's internet industry was just starting to take off. It all began in 1998 in a small office in Huaqiangbei, a district in China's southern tech hub of Shenzhen known for its sprawling electronics markets.

Here is a fresh look at how Tencent got to where it is today and the challenges it faces.

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