Mark Zuckerberg vs. an Average 30-Year-Old Man

It’s not easy getting older. Unless you’re Mark Zuckerberg.

The Facebook CEO turns 30 on Wednesday, with enough milestones (and a bank account) that could easily put an average bachelor into a plush retirement. While most 30-year-old guys are just landing on their feet in the workforce or perhaps finally leaving their parents’ basements, Zuck is entering his third decade with a pretty stacked resume — including the company he founded turning 10, a pseudo-biopic focused on his career and enough hoodies to last a lifetime.

On the bright side, your wardrobe is probably nicer.

source: mashable

 

Tencent Approaches Facebook Value Surpassing $100 Billion Amid China Web Bloom

Tencent Holdings Ltd. (700)’s market value surpassed $100 billion within a decade of going public as Asia’s biggest Internet company capitalizes on China’s explosion in online gaming and messaging.

Tencent’s 2.2 percent increase in Hong Kong this week lifted its market value to HK$780.6 billion ($101 billion). The company run by billionaire Pony Ma joins six other members of Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index in the $100 billion club, including PetroChina Co. (857) and China Mobile Ltd. (941). China’s online population surged almost sevenfold since Tencent’s 2004 initial public offering, with revenue at the Shenzhen-based company more than doubling in the past two years. China’s online gaming sales are expected to reach 1.3 trillion yuan ($212.4 billion) by 2016, from 66.2 billion yuan last year, according to Shanghai-based Internet consulting firm IResearch.“Mobile Internet was the main driver, as this sector has been posting very fast growth,” said Eric Qiu, an analyst at CCB International Holding Ltd. in Hong Kong. “There should be no problem for Tencent’s momentum to last until the end of this year and into the next.” Tencent’s market capitalisation is greater than that of SoftBank Corp. (9984), McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) and Boeing Co. (BA) It trails a handful of technology companies worldwide, including Apple Inc., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. and Facebook Inc. (FB), which is valued at $103.5 billion.

Tencent Deal.
Jerry Huang, a director of investor relations at Tencent, didn’t respond to a text message and e-mail seeking comment. Also yesterday, Tencent said it paid $448 million for part of China’s third-largest search engine to help compete against Baidu Inc. Tencent bought a 36.5 percent stake in Sohu.com Inc. (SOHU)’s Sogou unit with an option to increase that investment to 40 percent, according to a joint statement after the Hong Kong market closed.
Tencent shares fell 0.2 percent to HK$420.20 at 1:34 p.m. in Hong Kong. Sohu rose 7.5 percent, the most since March 5, in New York yesterday.

Tencent was founded in November 1998, and its early services focused on e-mail, dating and online games. Tencent raised more than HK$1.7 billion from an initial public offering in 2004. China had 591 million Internet subscribers at the end of June, compared with 87 million at the end of June 2004, according to China Internet Network Information Center’s website.

QQ, WeChat
The number of people in China accessing the Internet via mobile devices rose 10 percent to 464 million by the end of June from six months earlier, according to the center. That’s greater than the population of any other country except India.
Tencent shares have risen 69 percent this year, compared with a 2.3 percent gain in the benchmark Hang Seng index.

The company’s rise has enriched others, including largest shareholder Naspers Ltd. (NPN), which owns about a third of the stock. Shares of the Cape Town-based company surged 76 percent this year, compared with an 11 percent gain on the FTSE/JSE Africa All Shares Index.

Tencent’s QQ instant messaging service had 818 million monthly active users at the end of June, and its WeChat service had 236 million. That compares with about 1 million instant-messaging accounts in 1999, according to its website.
“They were on the forefront of the whole mobile shift,” said Billy Leung, an analyst at RHB Research Institute Sdn. in Hong Kong.

Alibaba IPO Ma, China’s third-richest man, has a net worth of $10.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has a net worth of $20.8 billion.

Tencent is developing offerings for WeChat, known as Weixin in China, to compete with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., the nation’s biggest e-commerce company. More than 84 percent of China’s Internet users regularly access instant messaging, making it the most popular online application in the country, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“WeChat is a new growth driver, and the government is carrying out new policies to help boost technology growth,” said Ricky Lai, an analyst at Guotai Junan International Holdings Ltd. in Hong Kong. “If Tencent can keep growing its user base, its momentum will last.”

Alibaba may consider an initial share sale that could be the largest since Facebook. The Hangzhou-based company has a value of about $87 billion, according to the average of 11 analyst estimates released in July.

‘Call of Duty’
Tencent’s net income will increase 25 percent to 16 billion yuan this year, according to the average of 21 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. It’s investing the most since 2009 on research and development, building games and other mobile applications to lure people spending more time on their smartphones and tablets.
Online gaming accounted for 52 percent of Tencent’s 43.9 billion yuan in revenue last year, while sales from mobile applications contributed about 9 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Tencent is majority owner of U.S.-based Riot Games Inc., which developed “League of Legends,” and announced plans in July to buy 15.4 percent of Activision Blizzard Inc. (ATVI), owner of the hit titles “Call of Duty” and “World of Warcraft.”

Source: Bloomberg

Analyst’s eye ‘lucrative’ future for Instagram Video

Kevin Systrom, Facebook savior? The Instagram creator's video tool is giving Facebook analysts hope for a more lucrative future.
James Martin/CNET

Facebook’s latest gift to users, the addition of video to Instagram, will be the gift that keeps on giving to company investors — or so the speculation from analysts goes.

Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom on Thursday unveiled a new video feature for creating and sharing 15-second clips at a press event at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters. The offering borrows from Twitter’s Vine, which has 13 million registered users, and allows people to stop and start their recordings as they see fit. Instagram video, however, comes with filters and works to automatically stabilize footage.

In reports published Thursday, analysts at RBC Capital Markets and Sterne Agee said that video for Instagram should equate to money in the bank for Facebook. The firms expect the social network to use the video offering to monetize the popular application, which is currently devoid of ads, and capitalize on the online video advertising market.

Both firms are also bullish on the product as a whole and view it as a viable challenger to Twitter’s Vine.

“The introduction of video will likely make the service more compelling, leading to greater user engagement and also opening the door to lucrative video advertising,” RBC Capital Markets Analyst Mark Mahaney wrote.

“Ultimately, we see the opportunity for Facebook to monetize [Instagram video] via video ads in Facebook’s News Feed,” Sterne Agee Analyst Arvind Bhatia said in the firm’s report. “We believe these 15-second videos could prove quite effective/lucrative.”

Defending its stance, Sterne Agee cited data from eMarketer predicting that online video advertising spending will surpass $4 billion this year and $9 billion by 2017. RBC Capital said that it expects more of the $200 billion spent on TV advertising each year to migrate to the Web, and anticipates Facebook capturing a large share of the cross-over dollars.

Analysts and investors, though anxious for additional revenue streams, will need to be patient when it comes to Instagram, which has 130 million active users but no ads.

Wednesday, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg reiterated, at the Reuters Global Technology Summit, the company’s laissez-faire stance on using Instagram to generate revenue. “We all think it makes a lot of sense for Instagram to be focused on growth,” she said.

Source: Cnet