Investors in Tencent Holdings, China’s internet gaming and social media group, have reason to feel anxious leading into Wednesday’s scheduled fourth-quarter earnings announcement.
中国互联网游戏和社交媒体集团——腾讯控股(Tencent Holdings)的投资者在第4季度业绩报告周三公布前夕有理由感到焦虑。
After watching its stock price shoot upwards for the better part of a year, in the process making its chairman, Pony Ma, the richest man in China in January, Tencent last week got hit by twin blows. Its shares on Friday lost 3 per cent after the central bank suspended Tencent’s virtual credit card (along with that of rival Alibaba), along with QR code scanning apps for mobile payments.
去年大部分时间里，腾讯的股价都在上涨，使其董事局主席马化腾(Pony Ma)在今年1月成为中国首富。但腾讯上周受到了双重打击。首先，中国央行宣布暂停腾讯及其竞争对手阿里巴巴(Alibaba)的虚拟信用卡业务和用于移动支付的二维码扫描应用，随后，腾讯股价在上周五下跌了3%。
Secondly, on Thursday night more than three dozen public accounts – essentially blogs – hosted by WeChat, Tencent’s hottest offering, were hit by the first wave of large-scale censorship – 35-40 such blogs were summarily deleted.
其次，上周四晚的第一波大规模审查中，腾讯最受欢迎的服务——微信(WeChat)上的数十个公共账号（基本上就是博客）遭到封杀，35至40个这样的公共账号被一举删除。
The fear is that WeChat, which was thought to be less exposed to censorship than rival Weibo, could attract the same scrutiny which has driven away Weibo users amid a campaign against “rumour mongering”.
人们担心的是，原本被认为比其对手新浪微博(Weibo)较少受到审查的微信，可能引来同等程度的审查——在一场打击“传播谣言”的运动中，审查已导致新浪微博的用户流失。
The key areas for scrutiny in the announcement are:
对于腾讯的业绩报告，关键的关注领域如下：
Financial regulation: The central bank has yet to fully explain its reasoning on the credit card fiasco last week. And Tencent and Alibaba have yet to clear the air themselves. So how did this happen, one day after the announcement? Did someone forget to tell the central bank that they were issuing the virtual credit cards? Did the central bank change its mind? Or does the regulatory process for issuing a credit card in China not include the central bank? Citic bank, which was the actual issuer, has said it followed procedures. Analysts say darkly that the problem may be with Unionpay, the government bank card monopoly. Investors are hoping for some clarity from Tencent on what went wrong.
金融监管：中国央行尚未详细解释上周暂停虚拟信用卡业务的理由。腾讯和阿里巴巴本身也尚未澄清这件事。在宣布推出服务一天后就被叫停，这样的灾难到底是如何发生的？是有人忘了告诉央行他们发行的将是虚拟信用卡吗？是中国央行改变了想法？还是在中国发行信用卡的监管流程不关央行的事？虚拟信用卡的实际发行人中信银行(Citic Bank)表示，其走完了相关程序。分析师们阴郁地表示，问题可能出在具有政府背景的银行卡垄断公司——中国银联(Unionpay)身上。投资者希望腾讯对问题出在哪里做出一些澄清。
WeChat: Tencent’s instant messaging service is the hottest thing in Chinese internet, with 271m users. Because it is primarily used on phones, it is the main reason Tencent is regarded as being in the strongest position for the arrival of the mobile internet in China. It is also thought to be less exposed to scrutiny by the authorities because the maximum size of a chat group is capped. But the deleting of political blogs last week may mean it too is not immune from the heavy hand of Chinese censors. Rival Weibo has lost users following a half-year-long campaign against “rumour mongering” on the internet. As a result, Weibo says it is growing at its slowest rate in its five-year history, and some reckon its user base may be falling. If the same were to happen to WeChat, it could hurt Tencent’s plans for the mobile internet.
微信：腾讯这款即时通讯服务是中国互联网领域最炙手可热的应用，用户数量达到2.71亿。由于微信主要是在手机上使用的，这成了腾讯被视为在中国移动互联网时代到来之际占据最有利位置的主要原因。另外，腾讯也被认为受到当局审查的程度较低，因为其聊天群的人数规模是有上限的。但上周一批政治类公共账号被封杀表明，微信难逃中国审查机构的高压管制。在已持续半年的打击网上“传播谣言”的运动中，竞争对手新浪微博的用户出现流失。其结果是，新浪微博表示，目前其用户增速处于5年历史中的最低水平，有些人认为其用户基础可能在减少。如果微信发生同样事情，可能损害腾讯的移动互联网计划。
Gaming business: Most of Tencent’s cash comes from gaming. Expect an update on revenues from Leagues of Legend and solid growth of WeChat games including Dungeon Fighter and Crossfire, and Blade and Soul.
游戏业务：这是腾讯主要的现金收入来源。预计公司将公布“英雄联盟”(Leagues of Legend)收入的最新数据，同时“地下城与勇士”(Dungeon Fighter)、“穿越火线”(Crossfire)和“剑灵”(Blade and Soul)等微信游戏出现强劲增长。
Earnings: These are the least of Tencent’s worries – driven by cash from games, Tencent is the most cash-rich of the three internet conglomerates in China. The Bloomberg consensus is total revenues of Rmb16.62bn and net profit of Rmb4.17bn.
利润：这是腾讯最不担忧的地方。在游戏收入的支持下，腾讯已成为中国三大互联网集团中现金最充沛的一家。彭博(Bloomberg)的共识预测显示，腾讯总收入达166.2亿元人民币，其中净利润达41.7亿元人民币。