Tencent Opens Chinese Tea House as London Olympics Information Hub

Tencent, the leading online media company in China, announced the opening of its Tencent Chinese Tea House as part of its preparation for the London Olympic Games. The Chinese Tea House is a media platform providing diverse Games-related information and interactive content that will support more than 1.2 billion audience interactions during the Olympics.

According to Ma Yankun, Head of Tencent’s Frontline Reporting Team of London Olympics, Tencent’s Olympic Channel during the Games would exceed 1.2 billion interactions. It acts as a key live broadcast platform supporting more than 100 press attending from Chinese and international media organisations, as well as delivering content to multiple Chinese media properties. It will play a crucial role in reporting London Olympics at QQ.com.

Mr. Ma said, “The Tea House will provide a new approach for the Chinese audience of hundreds of millions to view the Games, as well as offering them the opportunity to experience the Olympics as if they are on site. Tencent is deploying latest online media equipment and technical expertise to produce audio and video content at the highest possible quality, enabling audience members to view and experience the event as if they are in the venues themselves. More importantly, we are covering a range of diverse angles in order to bring complete insight into what is going on at the Games.”

A New Sharing-based Media Platform

Deputy Editor-in-chief of QQ.com Zhao Guochen commented, “The competition among Chinese media outlets during the London Olympics will be very fierce, but the main battlefield will be the speed at which news is delivered. As a whole, Chinese media firms are still in the exploration phase, looking to diversify reporting angles and apply new media technologies. This has led to a huge gap with the demand of engagement from hundreds of millions of people within the Chinese online audience. This requires in-depth analysis on the level of engagement with audience members, the width of coverage and the dimensions of involvement that are taking place. All of this is fully dependent on the supply of diverse content, both through integration of technology and product.”

The Tencent Chinese Tea House has been designed to support a combination of social and online content vehicles that covers Weibo, video, social network and advanced online media technologies. Under the strategy of “We Understand Netizens the Best”, Tencent has primarily built up its framework for Olympics. Alongside these virtual platforms, Tencent’s studios and live broadcast rooms in the Tea House will be opened for use by traditional media platforms as well, including 13 metropolis newspapers, 14 provincial television stations and 24 provincial broadcast stations in China. This will allow them to use new reporting methods that are made possible by innovative media technologies and will let them embrace the latest social and visual models of Olympics reporting.

An Online Interaction Platform with Chinese Athletes

Tencent is also creating programmes that will run during the Olympics. After the opening ceremony at the Chinese Tea House, Leung Man-tao hosted the first episode of Enjoy the Tea, Observe the Games in which he and famous authors Mai Jia and Su Tong compared the differences between Beijing Olympics and London Olympics, forecasted gold medals ranking and gave their thoughts on how the coming opening ceremony of the Games will be. International pianist Lang Lang and famous CCTV host Liu Jianhong were also involved in the launch episode, where the piano master Lang Lang predicted bravely that China will beat the US again to the position of No. 1 in the gold medals table.

Another new series called Gold Medal Express will welcome 90 per cent of China’s gold medalists this summer, providing Chinese athletes with an easy interactive platform to reach out to the Chinese audience following their performances. The program team will invite gold medalists on to the show at the first possible time after events have taken place, allowing them into the studio to share their stories with the audience. Meanwhile, Tencent will also broadcast the program on Weibo live for real-time interaction with audience members online.

A third program called Olympic Parents will focus on the moving stories that exist for the gold medalists, their parents and what happens to them during the Games.

The opening of the Chinese Tea House demonstrates Tencent’s determination to provide the strongest reporting from the Games for the Chinese audience, however they want to consume content around London 2012. More importantly, this launch shows the potential that exists for development of new portal websites for reporting around major events. As part of the Games Tencent will show how it is possible to promote the fit between new media, marketing and event management in order to provide a greater experience for the audience.

About Tencent

Tencent aims to enrich the interactive online experience of Internet users by providing a comprehensive range of Internet and wireless value-added services. Through its various online platforms, including Instant Messaging QQ, web portal QQ.com, the QQ Game platform under Tencent Games, multi-media social networking service Qzone and wireless portal, Tencent services the largest online community in China and fulfills the user’s needs for communication, information, entertainment and e-Commerce on the Internet. Tencent has four main streams of revenues:

Internet value-added services, mobile and telecommunications value-added services, online advertising and e-Commerce.

Shares of Tencent Holdings Limited are traded on the Main Board of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited, under stock code 00700. The Company became one of the 43 constituents of the Hang Seng Index (HSI) on June 10, 2008. For more information, please visit www.tencent.com/ir.

Forward-looking Statements Disclaimer: This press release contains forward-looking statements relating to the business outlook, forecast business plans and growth strategies of Tencent. They are based on information currently available to Tencent and its outlook at the time of this press release. These statements are made under certain expectations, assumptions and premises, some of which are subjective or beyond Tencent’s control. These forward-looking statements may prove to be incorrect and may not be realised in future. Underlying these statements are a large number of risks and uncertainties. As such, the inclusion of any forward-looking statements in this press release should not be regarded as representations by Tencent or any of its directors and employees that the business outlook, forecast, plans and strategies will be achieved, and no undue reliance should be placed on any of such statements.