Flush times for China's social network

Most social networks and web businesses generate their revenues from online advertising - but it looks like some do it much better than others.

Tencent, the owner of instant messaging juggernaut QQ, has just reported it's 2008 revenues at a whopping RMB7.15 billion. For those who still think in greenback, that's over a billion USD in 2008. The company netted RMB2.79 billion in profit that year which represents almost a 78% increase from 2007.

We normally don't report financial results here on Shanghaiist but we were pretty gobsmacked by these numbers. Where did they earn all this money?

Apparently from things like "avatars, dating services, online memberships, music and community sites."

Image by Alex