The Chinese investment group Tencent Holdings Ltd. is no longer the most valuable Asian company by market cap. When the stock exchange opened on August 18, 2021, the world’s largest chip order manufacturer, TSMC, pulled out and has been ahead since then.

The price per share is currently the equivalent of 92.50 euros – with 5.186 billion shares in circulation according to the US stock exchange NASDAQ this results in a market capitalization of almost 480 billion euros. Tencent, on the other hand, stands at around 454 billion euros. For the world’s first place, however, it still takes: Apple is currently a good 2.1 trillion euros.

Both companies are important in the West

Tencent is also a big player in the West: The group includes the game studios Riot Games (“League of Legends”) and Grinding Gear Games (“Path of Exile”). Epic Games (Unreal Engine, Epic Games Store) is 40 percent owned by Tencent, and the company also holds shares in Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft and Paradox Interactive. Outside of the games industry, Tencent participates in Snapchat, Spotify and Tesla and develops the chat and payment app WeChat, which is popular in China.

Most recently, the share price fell after several negative headlines: Chinese state media demonized online gaming as “opium for the mind”, and Chinese authorities are investigating WeChat for alleged youth protection regulations.

TSMC, meanwhile, is benefiting from the global chip shortage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The order books are full – due to delays in its own manufacturing processes, Intel even orders chips from TSMC. In the past few weeks, the share price has fallen slightly, but compared to the beginning of 2020 it is roughly twice as high.

(mmma)