Investing.com - Asian equities were mostly lower in morning trade on Thursday. Tencent’s earnings report was in focus after the company surprised traders with its first decline in profit in almost 13 years.
China’s Shanghai Composite slipped 0.4% while the Shenzhen Component edged up 0.1% by 9:50PM ET (01:50 GMT). Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was down 0.3%.
Tencent’s net income fell 2% to 17.9 million yuan ($2.6 billion) in the three months ended June, compared to the general consensus of 19.3 billion yuan, according to a statement. Mobile gaming revenue dropped 19% from the first quarter.
“From a revenue growth perspective, gaming is a key area of weakness, our biggest game is not monetizable,” President Martin Lau said. “This is something that’s a little out of our control, but over time we’ll solve it.”
The report came after regulators banned the sale of its blockbuster video game Monster Hunter: World just days after its launch on Aug. 8, as regulators received a large number of complaints about the game that was sold over 8 million copies worldwide.
“The fact that Monster Hunter got taken down shows that even Tencent isn’t immune from regulatory crackdowns,” said Benjamin Wu, a Shanghai-based analyst with consultancy Pacific Epoch.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 edged down 0.1% after data showed the country’s exports rose 3.9% year-on-year in July, well short of a 6.3% increase expected by analysts and a 6.7% year-on-year gain in June.
On the other hand, trade surplus with the U.S fell 22.1% year-on-year to 502.7 billion yen ($4.55 billion).
Down under, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.2%. South Korea’s KOSPI was down 0.7%, with big names including SK Hynix Inc (KS:000660) and Samsung Electronics (KS:005930) down 3.8% and 2.6% respectively.
The Turkish crisis continued to receive some attention as Qatar promised to invest $15 billion in the country. The lira jumped as much as 8% versus the dollar Wednesday following the news.