Tencent’s efficiency boost led to a strong set of second-quarter results following earnings miss in five out of six quarters amid an unfavorable operating environment, JPMorgan said in a note on Thursday.
The bank maintained the rating of the stock at Overweight, with target price rising from $440 to $465.
Tencent achieved solid cost cut in the second quarter by shutting non-core or redundant units in areas such as online education, e-commerce, and game live-streaming; rationalizing underperforming units such as loss-making digital content services and sub-scale social media goods; tightened marketing cost control; and migrating all Chinese in-house services to Tencent Cloud in the fourth quarter, in order to boost productivity and cost efficiency, according to the note.
The above-mentioned measures haven’t been fully reflected in the interim results and are expected to be gradually reflected in the results for the second half of the year, the bank said.