雙重打擊令投資者擔心騰訊業績

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.

中國互聯網遊戲和社交媒體集團——騰訊控股(Tencent Holdings)的投資者在第4季度業績報告週三公佈前夕有理由感到焦慮。

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.

去年大部分時間裏，騰訊的股價都在上漲，使其董事局主席馬化騰(Pony Ma)在今年1月成爲中國首富。但騰訊上週受到了雙重打擊。首先，中國央行宣佈暫停騰訊及其競爭對手阿里巴巴(Alibaba)的虛擬信用卡業務和用於移動支付的二維碼掃描應用，隨後，騰訊股價在上週五下跌了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，上週四晚的第一波大規模審查中，騰訊最受歡迎的服務——微信(WeChat)上的數十個公共賬號（基本上就是博客）遭到封殺，35至40個這樣的公共賬號被一舉刪除。

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”.

人們擔心的是，原本被認爲比其對手新浪微博(Weibo)較少受到審查的微信，可能引來同等程度的審查——在一場打擊“傳播謠言”的運動中，審查已導致新浪微博的用戶流失。

The key areas for scrutiny in the announcement are:

對於騰訊的業績報告，關鍵的關注領域如下：

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.

金融監管：中國央行尚未詳細解釋上週暫停虛擬信用卡業務的理由。騰訊和阿里巴巴本身也尚未澄清這件事。在宣佈推出服務一天後就被叫停，這樣的災難到底是如何發生的？是有人忘了告訴央行他們發行的將是虛擬信用卡嗎？是中國央行改變了想法？還是在中國發行信用卡的監管流程不關央行的事？虛擬信用卡的實際發行人中信銀行(Citic Bank)表示，其走完了相關程序。分析師們陰鬱地表示，問題可能出在具有政府背景的銀行卡壟斷公司——中國銀聯(Unionpay)身上。投資者希望騰訊對問題出在哪裏做出一些澄清。

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：騰訊這款即時通訊服務是中國互聯網領域最炙手可熱的應用，用戶數量達到2.71億。由於微信主要是在手機上使用的，這成了騰訊被視爲在中國移動互聯網時代到來之際佔據最有利位置的主要原因。另外，騰訊也被認爲受到當局審查的程度較低，因爲其聊天羣的人數規模是有上限的。但上週一批政治類公共賬號被封殺表明，微信難逃中國審查機構的高壓管制。在已持續半年的打擊網上“傳播謠言”的運動中，競爭對手新浪微博的用戶出現流失。其結果是，新浪微博表示，目前其用戶增速處於5年曆史中的最低水平，有些人認爲其用戶基礎可能在減少。如果微信發生同樣事情，可能損害騰訊的移動互聯網計劃。

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.

遊戲業務：這是騰訊主要的現金收入來源。預計公司將公佈“英雄聯盟”(Leagues of Legend)收入的最新數據，同時“地下城與勇士”(Dungeon Fighter)、“穿越火線”(Crossfire)和“劍靈”(Blade and Soul)等微信遊戲出現強勁增長。

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.

利潤：這是騰訊最不擔憂的地方。在遊戲收入的支持下，騰訊已成爲中國三大互聯網集團中現金最充沛的一家。彭博(Bloomberg)的共識預測顯示，騰訊總收入達166.2億元人民幣，其中淨利潤達41.7億元人民幣。