Hong Kong, Feb 20, 2026, 19:33 HKT — Market closed.
- Tencent finished roughly 2% lower as Hong Kong returned from the Lunar New Year holiday, following a wider slump in tech stocks.
- Tencent reported its Yuanbao AI assistant has hit 50 million daily users. Still, investors shifted toward “pure AI” names and locked in gains on major platforms.
- All eyes shift to mainland markets reopening Tuesday, with Tencent’s annual results call set for March 18.
Tencent Holdings Ltd fell 2.06% to close at HK$522 on Friday, a drop of HK$11. Shares changed hands between HK$518 and HK$533, with 21.35 million shares traded.
Hong Kong shares tumbled as trading resumed after the Lunar New Year break, with tech stocks bearing the brunt. The Hang Seng Index dropped 1.1%, while the Hang Seng Tech Index lost 2.9%. Alibaba finished 4.9% lower; Baidu was hit harder, down 6.3%, according to the South China Morning Post. Mainland exchanges remain closed for the week, set to reopen Tuesday.
Why now? The consumer AI rush is shaking up capital flows within China’s tech sector, and the big question for investors is which companies can actually translate all that buzz into profits. “Money is rotating into pure AI names,” said Billy Leung, investment strategist at Global X Management. Shares of generative AI firms Zhipu and MiniMax soared when trading reopened, up as much as 25% and 16%. “Investors are increasingly scrutinising how quickly their AI initiatives can contribute meaningfully to earnings,” wrote Dilin Wu, research strategist at Pepperstone Group. The Business Times
Tencent, the company behind WeChat, is pushing its AI story forward. According to the firm, its large-model product Yuanbao has now hit 50 million daily active users—those who open the app on any given day—and counts 114 million users each month. In just 21 days, the company rolled out 159 feature updates. Next up: on Feb. 21, the fifth day of Lunar New Year, it’s planning “random red packet” cash giveaways inside chats. AA Stocks
With Tencent, investors have zeroed in on DAUs and MAUs as shorthand for performance, but those figures don’t get to the heart of the issue: monetisation. You can boost usage with promotions, but if incentives and computing costs keep ticking up, margins remain under threat.
With onshore exchanges shut, mainland buyers have been absent — leaving Hong Kong megacaps without one of their usual support pillars. Stock Connect, the trading scheme that allows mainland participation in Hong Kong shares, gets switched back on once Shanghai and Shenzhen resume trading. Traders are set to keep a close eye on that early next week.
The risk is clear. Take away the holiday giveaways, app traffic could drop fast. Then those subsidy and AI infrastructure costs hit the books before the revenue rolls in. If nerves stay high, investors might dump big internet stocks—even if user numbers look strong.
In the immediate future, investors are eyeing additional post-holiday numbers on user engagement, and waiting to see if any new brokerage notes emerge on the speed of AI integration into advertising, payments, or gaming. Monday’s trading in Hong Kong brings an early check: was Friday’s decline just a blip, or the first sign of a broader shift?
Tencent’s next big event lands March 18: the tech giant will release its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results, with a conference call booked from 20:00 to 21:00 Hong Kong time, the investor calendar shows. AI spending, product pipeline updates, and the state of Tencent’s main businesses—all on the radar for investors.
