Ma Huateng

Ma ranks the fourth wealthiest person in China and the 34th wealthiest person in the world according to Forbes, with a net worth of US$34.5 billion.

, he has a net worth of US$37.5 billion according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, ranking him as the 33rd wealthiest person in the world.

Ma Huateng (, born on October 29, 1971) is a Chinese business magnate, investor, and philanthropist.

He is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Tencent, one of the most valuable companies in East Asia, one of the largest internet and technology companies, and one of the biggest investment, gaming, and entertainment conglomerates in the world.

The company in Shenzhen develops China's biggest mobile instant messaging service, WeChat, and its subsidiaries provide media, entertainment, payment systems, smartphones, internet-related services, value-added services and online advertising services, both in China and globally.

He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and Applied Engineering from Shenzhen University in 1993.

Ma's first job was with China Motion Telecom Development, a supplier of telecommunications services and products, where he was in charge of developing software for pagers.

He reportedly earned $176 per month.

He also worked for Shenzhen Runxun Communications Co. Ltd. (深圳润迅通讯发展you/ed/s限公司) in the research and development department for Internet calling services.

The company's first product came after Ma participated in a presentation for ICQ, the world's first Internet instant messaging service, founded in 1996 by an Israeli company.

Along with four other classmates, Ma Huateng went on to co-found Tencent in 1998.

After AOL (America Online) bought ICQ in 1998, the company filed an arbitration against Tencent with the National Arbitration Forum in the United States, claiming that OICQ's domain names OICQ.com and OICQ.net were in violation of ICQ's trademark.

Tencent lost the case and had to relinquish the domain names.

Inspired by the idea, Ma and his team launched in February 1999 a similar software, with a Chinese interface and a slightly different name: OICQ (or Open ICQ).

The product quickly became popular and garnered more than a million registered users by the end of 1999, making it one of the largest such services in China.

In 2000, Ma turned to US investment firm IDC and Hong Kong's telecom carrier Pacific Century CyberWorks (PCCW), which bought 40 percent of Tencent's shares for US$2.2 million.

With the pager market shrinking, Ma improved the messaging platform by allowing OICQ users to send messages to mobile handsets.

Afterwards, 80 percent of the company's revenue came from deals struck with telecom operators who agreed to share message fees.

In December 2000, Ma changed the name of the software to QQ ("Q" and "QQ" used to stand for the word "cute").

After the AOL case, Ma decided to expand the business portfolio of Tencent.

In 2003, Tencent released its own portal (QQ.com) and made forays into the online games market.

By 2004, Tencent became the largest Chinese instant messaging service (holding 74 percent of the market), prompting Ma to list the company on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

After the company raised $200 million in June's IPO, Ma quickly became one of the richest people in China's telecom industry.

In 2004, Tencent launched an online gaming platform and started selling virtual seminal s to support the games published on that platform (weapons, gaming power), as well as emoticons and ringtones.

At Ma's behest, Tencent launched in 2005 the C2C platform Paipai.com (拍拍网), a direct competitor to e-commerce giant Alibaba.

In 2007, 2014, and 2018, Time magazine named him one of the world's most influential people, while in 2015, Forbes credited him as one of the world's most powerful people.

In a 2009 interview with China Daily, he stated: "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants", paraphrasing a quote attributed to Isaac Newton and referencing the similarities between ICQ and OICQ.

"We knew our product had a future, but at that time we just couldn't afford it."

In order to solve the problem, Ma applied for bank loans and even discussed selling the company.

Since Tencent's prized service OICQ was offered free of charge, the company looked to venture capitalists to finance its growing operational costs.

Mimicking Microsoft, Ma created two competing teams of engineers in 2010 and charged them with creating a new product.

After two months, one team presented an app for text messaging and group chat – WeChat – which launched in January 2011.

Ma was a deputy to the Shenzhen Municipal People's Congress and a delegate in the 12th National People's Congress.

Being one of "Fortune world's greatest leaders", Ma is known for his low profile personality as compared to fellow Chinese businessman and Alibaba founder Jack Ma's outgoing personality.

Ma has been compared to famed American investor Warren Buffett for their similar investment approaches, and often described as an "aggressive acquisitor."

In 2017, Fortune ranked him as among the top businessmen of the year.

In November 2017, his net worth briefly surpassed that of Larry Page and Sergey Brin (individually) ranking him the ninth richest man in the world, and the first citizen from China to enter Forbes' top 10 richest list, though the net worth of Page and of Brin have each since eclipsed that of Ma.

Ma was born in Chaoyang, Shantou, Guangdong.

When his father, Ma Chenshu (马陈术), got a job as a port manager in Shenzhen, the young Ma accompanied him.

In 2018, he was named one of the "Most Powerful People In The World" by the CEOWORLD magazine.