Wealth won't give you satisfaction; creating a good product that's well received by users is what matters most...
Ma Huateng also acknowledged as Pony Ma is a Chinese entrepreneur who
founded an internet connection company named Tencent. And it is one of
the largest companies in China. He is a young entrepreneur who started
off Tencent during the year 1998. As of February 2014, he is the third
richest person in China and 70th richest guy in the world, with net
assets and property worth $14 billion according to the Hurun Report
Global rich list.
To talk about the co-founder of Tencent, Ma Pony, the guy is
incredibly shy and a complete geek, who is all to himself. Not many of
his associates know where he resides in China, whether on the China
Mainland or of the outskirts of Shenzhen province as such. He appeared
in a shiny grey suit at a teet-a teet event named WE which stands for We
Evolve.
He said that in his initial days he wanted to become an astronomer,
which simply didn’t happen. And he spoke on some of the global expansion
movements he had proposed for his company.
Early days and Education
Ma Huateng is a Chinese by Nationality and he was born on the 29th of
October in the year 1971 in the Chaoyang District, Shantou, Guangdong,
China. He presently resides in Hong KongMa Huateng was born on the 29th
of October 1971. He was born in a city named Chaoyang, Guangdong also
known as Pony Ma. And he is a Chinese by nationality. Ma did his
Bachelor’s degree in Science specializing in Computer and its
applications during the year 1993. He pursued his studies at Shenzhen
University. This is one of the top cadre universities in the whole of
China. He started his big internet based company during the year 1998
and there is absolutely no looking back for the 43 year old
entrepreneur. Ma Huateng is known for his constant efforts to avoid
media on the whole. He likes to be called Pony, which is English name.
He is known to everyone as the third richest person in China and stands
in the 70th position of the richest in the Worlds.
Career Spark
*Prior to co-founding the internet based company, Mr
Ma was in charge of research and development at Internet paging system
development at China Motion Telecom Development Limited, a supplier of
telecommunications services and products in China. Mr Ma is a deputy to
the 5th Shenzhen Municipal People’s Congress and the 12th National
People’s Congress. He holds more than 20 years of experience in the
internet and telecommunications field. He was a director at Advance Data
Services too.
*Mr. Huateng has also served as the Director in the
firm Ohio River Investment Limited. He also served on various roles like
the Principal Founder, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, Chairman of
Nomination Committee and Member of Investment Committee with the Tencent
Holdings Ltd.
His journey with Tencent Holdings Inc.
Ma Huateng, who is 42 years old, is an executive director, Chairman
and Chief Executive Officer of Tencent Holdings Inc. He is responsible
for drafting strategic plans and seeing to it that the plans are
translated into actual results. He also takes care of overall
administration and management of the group, as such. Mr Ma is one of the
core founders employed by Tencent group since 1999. Tencent, which is
China’s most powerful internet company, is headquartered in a glassy
tower in Southern Shenzhen. Absolutely no hype and hoopla with the
internet biggie unlike Silicon Valley’s funky campuses.
The company’s first product was an instant messaging tool named
Tencent QQ, which quite caught up the flame among gaming freaks and
online users across China. It is one of the top three internet companies
in China, just next to Alibaba and Baidu.
September 2012 saw a great leap among active internet users, covering
the whole of China. It surpassed 784 million active users, who were
hooked to Tencent QQ instant messaging.
Under the leadership and guidance of Mr Huateng, the internet
business has diversified its business operations to mobile applications
as well. The mobile wing named We Chat received an overwhelming response
and 200 million active users were testimony to the roaring success of
Tencent’s mobile phones wing. Other diverse range of services provided
by the internet biggie includes web portals, e-commerce and fantastic
online games. In fact 3D games like Legend of Yulong and Legend of
Xuanyuan boosted up the revenues of the company by more than half,
resulting in a profit margin of US $ 1.5 billion. The total revenue
amounted to US $ 5.1 billion.
Other interesting games developed by Tencent Holdings include Journey
to the Fairyland, Hero Island, Dragon Power, World of Fantasy, Cross
fire, League of Legends, QQ Free fantasy and a lot more. His games are
renowned and well played by online users across the globe.
It is so hard to take the words, off his mouth. He and his team are
constantly into developing one gaming application or the other. The team
is working towards integrating social-media; gaming and e-commerce, all
bundled up into one, which makes up for an amazing user experience. If
you can chat on Facebook with the same application as shopping on e
bay.com, wouldn’t the experience be a fulfilling one?
Tencent recently reached out at $139 billion at the Honk Kong Stock
exchange. Just that the gaming wizard is keeping it hidden, from the
rest of the world.
He and his fellow mates once had a dream vision of having an internet
based observatory to study the movement of planets and stars even on
the remotely polluted grey skies. And this is how his vision pulled off.
A man bought a house in the mountainous region of South China and built
a station surrounding his home. Anyone could plug in. And the results
were magical.
Ma Huateng says that “At Tencent, we may be businessmen, but we are
still chasing our IT, our science. We are still striving to create
something really cool, trying to create things we couldn't even imagine
without our new technologies. I am still clinging to this enthusiasm."
These are words of inspiration, youngsters can look forward to.
To develop new products, Ma developed two teams of engineers, one to
work in Shenzhen who were originally a part of the QQ team. And the
other team was based in Guangzhou. Both were given similar set of
instruction. The first team developed an app, for text messaging. And
the other team came out of the black room, with a group chat
application. The two were integrated into one and the app was named
Weixin, which was launched in 2011.
There is more to go, with the silent yet exciting player on cyberspace!
Awards and Accolades |
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Ma
Huateng was awarded for being the most influential business magnet by
Times magazine for three years, viz. 2004, 2007 and 2014. |
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He was also named as the World's most influential people by the Times Magazine. |
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He was one of the top 10 economic pliers according to a survey report released by China Central Television. |
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He was the best entrepreneur of the year 2011-2012 and the award was presented to him by Forbes International. |
Professional Affiliations |
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Shenzhen University |
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Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. |
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ePlanet Capital |
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Ohio River Investment Limited |
Quotes |
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I think every Internet user likes personalization. |
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The leader of the market today may not necessarily be the leader tomorrow. |
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Wealth won't give you satisfaction; creating a good product that's well received by users is what matters most. |
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You need to have extraordinary wisdom to be the forerunner. |
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In
America, when you bring an idea to market, you usually have several
months before competition pops up, allowing you to capture significant
market share. In China, you can have hundreds of competitors within the
first hours of going live. Ideas are not important in China - execution
is. |
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It's difficult for any single company to develop all the applications and services. |
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If
you ask me what I worry about every morning when I wake up, it's that I
don't understand future mainstream Internet users' habits. |
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At
Tencent, we may be businessmen, but we are still chasing our IT, our
science. We are still striving to create something really cool, trying
to create things we couldn't even imagine without our new technologies. I
am still clinging to this enthusiasm. |
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On
all open platforms, regardless of whether it's Facebook or the Apple
App Store, the largest segment is entertainment and games. It's the
largest revenue segment. And it's the same for Tencent. |
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Look
at Microsoft, Google, and Facebook. They have all entered many sectors,
and actually, in many of those sectors, they weren't as early as
Tencent. |