by David Kirton and Josh Ye
SHENZHEN, China/HONG KONG (Reuters) – Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings has begun a new round of layoffs at three of the group’s six business divisions, four people familiar with the matter said.
The sources said the layoffs affect the Video Streaming (PCG), Video Games (IEG) and Cloud Storage (CSIG) businesses.
Two of the sources said members of staff in the gaming operations had been informed last week of their dismissal.
Tencent declined to comment and Reuters was unable to establish the extent of the layoffs.
The Shenzhen-based company had already made job cuts earlier this year, as did the Alibaba Group and smaller Chinese tech companies like Xiaohongshu. In August, Tencent revealed that the number of its employees fell to 110,715 at the end of June from 116,213 in March.
Tencent management said it was focused on cutting costs and had closed non-core businesses in some areas.
It is also eyeing global expansion and is reportedly revising its mergers and acquisitions strategy to focus on buying majority stakes, mainly in overseas gaming companies, according to Reuters reports from October.
In the United States, several tech employers, including Facebook’s parent company Meta Platforms, Intel Corp and Twitter, have also laid off thousands of workers in recent weeks.
(Reports by David Kirton, Yingzhi Yang, Josh Ye and Julie Zhu, French version Dina Kartit, edited by Sophie Louet)
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