Net Worth & Profile
Ma Huateng | Biography, Career & Neworth
Ma Huateng, also known as Pony Ma is a Chinese billionaire and businessman with an estimated net worth of $40 Billion
Ma Huateng, also known as Pony Ma is a Chinese billionaire and businessman, he is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Tencent, a Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate which is considered the largest company in the video game industry in the world.
The Chinese business magnate who presently has a net worth of $40 Billion, is the 34th richest person in the world, according to the Forbes billionaire list. In 2017, he was the first Chinese citizen to enter Forbes’ top 10 richest list ranking no 9 on the list.
Bio Data
| Full Name | Ma Huateng |
| Date of Birth | October 29, 1971 |
| Gender | Male |
| Marital Status | Married |
| Career | Businessman |
| Networth | $40 Billion |
| Companies | Tencent |
| Nationality | Chinese |
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Ma Huateng’s Biography
Ma Huateng was born in Guangdong Province in China, His father, Ma Chenshu was a port manager in Shenzhen. He enrolled in Shenzhen University in 1989 and graduated in 1993 with a bachelor’s degree in computer science.
His first job was developing software for pagers at China Motion Telecom Development, a supplier of telecommunications services and products in Shenzhen. He earned $176 per month.
Along with a Shenzhen University classmate, Zhang Zhidong, Ma co-founded Tencent in November 1998. The company’s first product was instant messaging software called OICQ which was later changed to QQ a few years later, due to its similarity with American Online’s ICQ chat.
Tencent
Ma Huateng decided to expand the business portfolio of Tencent in 2003, by building a portal (QQ.com) and making forays into the online games market. By 2004, Tencent became the largest Chinese instant messaging service (holding 74 per cent of the market), prompting Ma to list the company on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. After the company raised $200 million in June’s IPO, Ma quickly became one of the richest people in China
In 2004, Tencent launched an online gaming platform and started selling virtual goods to support the games published on that platform (weapons, gaming power), as well as emoticons and ringtones. In 2005, they launched the C2C platform Paipai.com, a direct competitor to e-commerce giant Alibaba.
Mimicking Microsoft, Ma created two competing teams of engineers in 2010 and charged them with creating a new product. After two months, one team presented an app for text messaging and group chat – WeChat – which launched in January 2011. WeChat is presently one of the largest instant messaging platforms in the world, with over 1.3 billion active users worldwide.
Other diverse services provided by Tencent include web portals, e-commerce, and multiplayer online games. According to Bloomberg, The Shenzhen-based company reported a revenue of 482 billion yuan ($73.6 billion) in 2020.
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Ma Huateng’s Networth
Ma Huateng who presently has an estimated net worth of $40 billion according to Forbes, got a majority of his wealth from his 7.4% stake in Tencent. He reportedly transferred $2.3 billion in Tencent shares to a charitable foundation in July 2016
As earlier stated, Ma was the first Chinese citizen to enter Forbes’ top 10 richest list, ranking no 9 on the with a net worth of $48.3 Billion at that time. According to local media reports, he also owns about $150 million worth of property in Hong Kong.