[ET Net News Agency, 15 July 2020] Citi Research lifted its target price for Tencent
Holdings (00700) to HK$649 from HK$530 and maintained its "buy" rating.
Tencent is due to report 2Q results after the market close on 12 August. The research
house expects 2Q to be another solid quarter, but a few factors that benefited from the
lockdown in 1Q encountered sequential headwinds in 2Q such as online games and social ad
revenue.
Video ads are still facing brand advertisers' cautious budgets, and the cloud
implementation project has been in slow recovery, partly offset by the consolidation of
Huya financials and a sequential improvement in the payment business, Citi noted.
Looking at 2H 2020-2021, growth trajectory could come from incremental revenue
contribution from game launches such as upcoming releases of DNF Mobile, JX2, strength of
Dragon Nest 2, Brawl Stars, HoK and Peace Elite.
Citi remains confident that Tencent will improve its share in social/targeting ad
budgets, and the structural shift in demand growth of cloud migration and nonpayment
fintech products should strengthen Tencent's ecosystem in the medium- to long-term. (KL)