Tencent reported its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results on March 19, underscoring that games remain the foundation of its business even as it increases investment in artificial intelligence and other verticals.
According to its disclosure, revenue from Tencent’s domestic games business reached RMB 164.2 billion (USD 23.8 billion) in 2025, up 18% year-on-year (YoY), driven by strong performance from Delta Force and continued growth from evergreen titles such as Honor of Kings and Game for Peace, as well as the Valorant franchise across PC and mobile.
Revenue from international games totaled RMB 77.4 billion (USD 11.2 billion), up 33% YoY, supported by growth from Supercell titles and PUBG Mobile, along with contributions from Wuthering Waves.
Over the past year, AI has been a defining theme for Tencent, including within its games business. In both its earnings release and earnings call, management emphasized AI’s role in content creation, marketing, and in-game features designed to enhance user experience. Examples include AI-driven teammates in Game for Peace and the in-game companion Lingbao in Honor of Kings.
To some extent, Tencent has little choice but to foreground AI in its narrative. Its adoption in games aligns with Tencent Games’ broader strategy and rising investment. General and administrative expenses reached RMB 136.1 billion (USD 19.7 billion) in 2025, up 21% YoY, making it the company’s largest and fastest-growing cost category, driven by AI-related R&D, investment, and talent expenses.
At the same time, 2025 marked the broader rollout of multimodal foundation models, positioning games as a key deployment scenario. Still, beyond questions of whether AI improves gameplay, a more immediate focus is whether it can reduce development costs and increase production efficiency.
Tencent released additional data on March 19, stating that Delta Force had reached 50 million daily active users. That figure, if sustained, places the title, launched in September 2024, among Tencent’s evergreen games alongside Honor of Kings and Game for Peace.
Delta Force’s trajectory reflects Tencent’s long-term operating approach. In October 2025, the game faced criticism over gameplay fairness. According to 36Kr, it received more than 500,000 negative reviews at one point, and its single-day gross revenue fell by more than 60%.
As evergreen games have become central to Tencent Games’ strategy, the focus has shifted to expanding and extending existing titles. Delta Force represents another push within the competitive shooter category, where Tencent has established expertise.
Tencent’s long-term strategy includes turning games into platforms and expanding them across multiple devices. The first involves continuously adding modes, scenarios, content, and social features to deepen engagement, with the goal of positioning a single title as both platform and traffic gateway. The second involves multi-platform releases.
One example is Valorant, which launched on PC in 2023 and expanded to mobile two years later. Together, the two versions contributed to Tencent Games’ revenue growth in 2025.
“Valorant Mobile was the most successful new mobile game industrywide by gross receipts in 2025, bringing a PC-quality shooting experience and a distinctive art style that appeals to younger players,” Mitchell said on the earnings call. “The game achieved lifetime high gross receipts in February.”
The evergreen strategy also intersects with Tencent’s international expansion. In 2025, international games revenue posted double-digit growth, improving from 9% in 2024, and surpassed USD 10 billion annually. The company attributed this to sustained performance from evergreen titles and the expansion of content-driven games.
Among top contributors overseas, PUBG Mobile remained a consistent presence. Tencent also rolled out the international mobile version of its self-developed Delta Force in April 2025, where it ranked highly on app store charts in multiple markets, according to company disclosures.
Despite this progress, Tencent has yet to achieve its goal of balancing domestic and overseas games revenue. In 2025, international markets accounted for about 32% of total games revenue, up from roughly 29% in 2024, a modest YoY increase.
KrASIA features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by Lan Jie for 36Kr.
Note: RMB figures are converted to USD at rates of RMB 6.90 = USD 1 based on estimates as of March 25, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.