Do we like them?

Do we like Tencent?

Chinese tech giant behind WeChat and the world's biggest games business (Riot, Supercell); based in Shenzhen, China.

Our score: 4 out of 10. Mixed, leaning cautious. It makes products people love, but WeChat's surveillance, censorship and Pentagon-list questions make it hard to back with a clear conscience.

Tencent was founded in Shenzhen in 1998 by Pony Ma and four partners. Pony Ma is still chairman and CEO 28 years on. It's listed in Hong Kong. South Africa's Naspers bought in back in 2001, and Naspers' arm Prosus remains the biggest shareholder while it slowly sells down.

Today it runs WeChat, QQ, games, video, advertising, payments and cloud. It's the world's largest video gaming company, and it owns or part-owns studios like Riot, Supercell and Epic Games.

The privacy side is the big worry. Toronto's Citizen Lab found that WeChat scans files and images, even between accounts registered outside China, to feed its censorship system. Citizen Lab also says WeChat lacks end-to-end encryption and complies with police data requests. Tencent said content shared among international users is private.

Geopolitics bites too. The Pentagon added Tencent to its list of Chinese military companies in January 2025. Tencent called that a mistake and said it's not a military company or supplier. A report this week says the list now bars the Pentagon from signing contracts with it.

On the plus side, after state media called games 'spiritual opium', Tencent cut kids' play time and banned under-12s from spending in its games. Those steps came under heavy official pressure. Overall we land at a cautious 4 out of 10.