In a uncommon present of frustration, Pony Ma mentioned at a year-end assembly with employees on Dec. 15 that inner evaluations this 12 months had uncovered unspecified corruption inside Asia’s largest social media and gaming firm, the sources mentioned.
He additionally lambasted senior managers after one of many hardest years for Tencent since its founding in 1998, with income battered by a regulatory crackdown and headwinds from measures to cease the unfold of COVID-19.
“Your projects can’t even survive as a business – they are living on life support, but still you just cheerily play ball on the weekend,” Ma mentioned in the course of the name, based on one worker who heard the feedback and one other who was briefed on them.
Tencent didn’t reply to a request for remark. The sources declined to be recognized because of the sensitivity of the problem.
The assembly was first reported by Chinese native media outlet Jiemian.
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Tencent reported a second straight quarterly income drop final month as China’s financial slowdown and regulatory scrutiny hit its advert and gaming companies.
Up to the earlier quarter, Tencent had reported double-digit progress for nearly each three-month reporting interval since going public in 2004.
Ma, who principally stays out of public view, additionally mentioned the corporate wanted to concentrate on brief video for future progress, and described the WeChat Video Account, Tencent’s brief video platform, because the “hope” of the Shenzhen-based firm, the sources mentioned.
He warned that the video gaming business group must get used to Beijing’s strict licensing regime, and the variety of new video games China would approve would stay restricted in the long term.