There's a new king of Chinese tech

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Tencent Pony Ma

REUTERS/Bobby Yip

Tencent Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Pony Ma attends a news conference announcing the company's results in Hong Kong March 18, 2015.

Tencent has overtaken ecommerce giant Alibaba as China's most valuable technology company, CNBC reports.

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The investment holding company, which owns instant messaging app WeChat and other internet businesses, posted strong results on Wednesday that saw its market cap rise to $249 billion (£189 billion), ahead of Alibaba's $246 billion (£187 billion) valuation.

Profit at Tencent, founded in 1998 by Ma Huateng and Zhang Zhidong, climbed 47% to 10.9 billion yuan ($1.6 billion; £1.2 billion) in the company's second quarter. Revenue for the same period came in at 35.69 billion yuan ($5.38 billion; £4.09 billion), rising 52% year-on-year.

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The majority of Tencent's revenue in the second quarter came from online gaming, with the division accounting for 17.124 billion yuan ($2.6 billion; £2.0 billion) of the company's total revenues. The company was part of a consortium that acquired a majority stake in Clash of Clans creator Supercell in June.

Shares in Tencent - listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange - soared by over 6% to a record high after the company's earnings were reported.

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Tencent owns a number of highly popular online properties including web portal QQ.com, Tencent QQ instant messenger, and auction site Pai.Pai.com.

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