Chinese Company Tencent is bigger than YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter combined, with a market capitalization of $57 billion. It is also the company that makes billions of rands each year for Naspers and Koos Bekker.

Yet, you probably know very little about it.

Naspers invested in the Chinese company 11 years ago, and could not have imagined that its $32 million would account for more than 80% of the media conglomerate’s R200 billion market now. At 34%, Naspers is Tencent’s largest stakeholder. R4,8 billion of Naspers chief executive Koos Bekker’s R6 billion is linked to Tencent, which makes him one of the highest paid executives in South Africa.

Although social media stocks like Facebook continue to plummet, Tencent is a testament to investment in emerging markets, offering online content that ranges from e-commerce to instant messaging and gaming.

Tencent is located in Shenzhen, which was a tiny fishing village until 1979, when the Chinese government declared it a “Special Economic Zone”. The city now sports a population of 10 million, and a GDP of $175 billion.

Tencent tower

Tencent was founded in 1998. Its biggest success is an online portal, called QQ.com. They also have gaming portals, a search engine and WeChat in Chinese.

Tucked into a corner of the building is exercise machines for those who desire a break. Look, it’s a far cry from Googleplex, but that doesn’t stop employees from printing cash.

This is an organisational chart showing the heads of the business. Three out of the nine top executives are women, which is actually fairly progressive for China.

Tencent generated $2,5 billion in profit last year. It continues to grow by 27% each year, which is funny, because a corner of the company is dedicated to the Chinese Communist Party.

The cafeteria doubles as a gift store where you can buy Tencent mascots, QQ girl and QQ boy.

For the full Tencent tour, click here.

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[Source: BusinessInsider; Mail & Guardian]