Chinese tech major Tencent has sacked a whopping 5,500 employees after the June quarter revenue dipped 3 percent, which was the company's first quarterly revenue slip after listing.
"During the second quarter, we actively exited non-core businesses, tightened our marketing spending, and trimmed operating expenses, enabling us to sequentially increase our non-IFRS earnings, despite difficult revenue conditions," Pony Ma Huateng, founder and chief executive of Tencent, said in a statement, according to IANS.
China's Largest Video Gaming Company
Tencent, China's largest video gaming and social media company, posted revenue of $19.8 billion in the June quarter. Net income logged 56 percent drop from a year ago, missing analysts' estimates.
The job cuts at Tencent was the first time since 2014, the report added. By the end of June, the number of employees stood at 110,715, compared with 116,213 in March.
Earlier in March, Reuters had reported that Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings were preparing to cut tens of thousands of jobs combined this year. This would be one of their biggest layoffs, the report said, adding that the internet firms in China are struggling to cope with China's sweeping regulatory crackdown.
Tencent, the owner of China's dominant messaging app WeChat, also plans to make employees redundant this year in some of its business units, the report had said. "The job cuts at the two companies would be their first major layoffs since Chinese regulators launched an unprecedented campaign a year-and-a-half ago to rein in its internet giants after years of laissez-faire approach that drove growth at breakneck speed," the agency said.
In November last year, China's market regulator fined tech giants Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent and e-commerce platform JD.com Inc and Suning for violating the country's anti-monopoly rules. The companies were accused of failing to declare illegal implementation of operating concentration in concentration in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deals.
