Tencent reportedly cuts employees

Tencent is reportedly cutting employees responsible for its video streaming, gaming and cloud business, according to Reuters.

The job cuts affected three out of Tencent’s six business divisions including platform and content (PCG), gaming-focused interactive entertainment department (IEG) and cloud and smart industries group (SCIG), said the report. Meanwhile, some staff from IEG were informed of the layoffs last week amidst reports emerged around the impacts on multiple departments of the company in Beijing and Shanghai. 

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has reached out to Tencent for a statement.

Back in October this year, Tencent has reportedly put more focus on buying majority stakes mainly in overseas gaming companies, as it was trying to expand globally to offset slowing growth in China, according to another report by Reuters.

China’s tech companies have faced difficulties since last year as the Chinese government tightened its grip on the sector and zero-Covid measures that had slowed down the economy. 

Back in January this year, several Chinese tech companies had been fined for violating China's anti-monopoly law including Tencent, Alibaba and Bilibili, as they failed to report about many of their deals with other companies. China's State Administration for Market Regulation said on its website that it had imposed nine fines on Tencent. The penalty was equivalent to RMB $4.5 million.

Earlier this year, Tencent slashed its workforce alongside peers, including Alibaba and Xiaohongshu, which the layoffs of Xiaohongshu in April this year were reportedly cutting about one-tenth of its staff amid the authority's crackdown on tech companies. The job cuts were resulted from an annual performance review conducted in March that Xiaohongshu discovered that some staff's performances failed to reach expectations, according to the report by Reuters.

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