Tencent Loses $20 Billion in Value After China Attacks Myopia With Gaming Curbs

Tencent Holdings' market value slumped by around $20 billion (roughly Rs. 1.4 lakh crores) on Friday after China intensified a crackdown on online gaming citing rising levels of myopia, heightening regulatory risks for companies in the world's biggest gaming market.
China's Ministry of Education, in a notice late on Thursday, directed the publishing regulator to limit the number of new online video games, take steps to restrict the time young people spend playing games and explore an age-appropriate system for players.
Beijing's directive was included in a document published on the website of the ministry outlining how China should respond to worsening rates of myopia, or near-sightedness, among young people, and blamed the spread of mobile phones and other electronic devices partly for it.
The curbs are the latest challenge for Tencent, China's largest gaming and social media firm, which earlier this month blamed a freeze on new game approvals for the technology giant's first quarterly profit fall in nearly 13 years.
Shares of Tencent, which has a market value of around HKD 3.25 trillion ($414.12 billion), fell as much as 5.4 percent, leading a slide in Chinese video game companies. It closed down 4.9 percent. The main Hang Seng Index ended 1 percent lower.
Tencent has lost more than $160 billion in market value from its peak in January, chiefly on regulatory uncertainty, and now trails arch rival Alibaba Group to be Asia's second-biggest listed company by market capitalisation.
The massive plunge in its market value compares with Netflix's current market capitalisation of $162 billion.
Tencent did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

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