Tencent joins Facebook, Apple, and Amazon in the $500 billion club

Chinese tech giant Tencent has had a stellar year, and on Tuesday, it became the first Asian company to be worth more than $500 billion. As we can see in this chart from Statista, the company is now more valuable than Facebook.

Tencent’s stock has more than doubled this year, largely thanks to the surge in popularity of its mobile game Honour of Kings. The fantasy role-playing game has amassed 200 million players since its release last year, and at one point became so popular that People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s main newspaper, called it “poison to the teenager.” Another big money maker is WeChat, a messaging app that also has payment, social media, and gaming functions. Interestingly, WeChat’s domination has prevented Apple from getting Chinese consumers totally locked in to its hardware and app ecosystem. WeChat runs on iOS and Android, and as long they can keep their WeChat, Chinese consumers have no qualms about ditching their iPhones.

Samantha Lee/Business Insider