Asian Tech Press (Oct 12) -- Chinese social and gaming giant Tencent (0700.HK) fell below HK$250 on Tuesday, with its share price hitting a new low in nearly four years.

During early trading hours on Tuesday, Tencent sank again, and was trading at HK$249.4, down 2.04%.

At this point, Tencent's share price hit a new intraday low since November 2018 and fell more than 60% from its all-time high in early 2021, leaving a market value of just HK$2.39 trillion.

As of Tuesday, the Chinese Internet giant has conducted repurchases for 36 consecutive trading days, spending a cumulative HK$12.671 billion. Since this year, Tencent has made 73 buybacks, with a total value of HK$22.683 billion.

In the first half of this year, Tencent reported revenue of 269.505 billion yuan ($37.551 billion), down 1% year-on-year, and profit attributable to equity holders of the company of 42.032 billion yuan ($5.857 billion), plunging 53% year-on-year.

It is worth noting that Tencent will announce its third-quarter earnings on Nov. 16.

Morgan Stanley noted in a report that Tencent has recently accelerated buybacks to provide a cushion for the stock price. And the bank forecasted the tech giant's third-quarter revenue and Non-GAAP operating profit to fall 3% and 7% year-over-year, respectively, due to the rebound in demand for video games and slow recovery in advertising business.

(US$1 = 7.177 yuan)