Ma Huateng

Ma Huateng, (born October 29, 1971, Chaoyang, Guangdong province, China), Chinese business executive who was cofounder and CEO (1998– ) of Tencent Holdings Ltd., one of the world’s largest Internet companies.

Ma studied computer science at Shenzhen University, where he earned (1993) a Bachelor of Science degree. He then worked in research and development for China Motion Telecom Development Ltd. before founding (1998) Tencent with several friends. A year later the company launched the Internet-based QQ service (then called OICQ), which soon became one of China’s most-popular instant-messaging platforms. Tencent subsequently gained the backing of two overseas venture-capital firms, and in June 2004 the firm raised nearly $200 million when it went public on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Under Ma’s leadership Tencent greatly expanded its offerings to provide users with a range of what the company described as “online lifestyle services.” In addition to instant messaging, those services included e-commerce sites, online media outlets, gaming and other interactive entertainment, social networking sites, online advertising, and online payment processing. The company’s influence on the Chinese market was immense. By late 2015 QQ had approximately 850 million monthly active users, and WeChat—a mobile instant-messaging app that was first introduced in 2011—had some 650 million users. Tecent also operated the social networking site Qzone, which boasted more than 670 million monthly active users in 2015, making it the world’s third largest social network, behind only Facebook and YouTube. Tencent’s immense success made Ma, who was widely referred to as “Pony” Ma (the nickname was a play on his surname, which means “horse” in Chinese), one of the wealthiest individuals in China.