Tencent Cloud, a division of the Chinese tech giant, is gearing up to expand its media solutions to capitalise on growth in live-streaming and Web 3.0, while differentiating itself from US cloud computing rivals.
The move is intended to increase the company's overseas business amid a slowing economy and regulatory restrictions in the Chinese market.
"Southeast Asia is a growing cloud computing market as businesses continue their digital transformation journeys," Poshu Yeung, senior vice-president of Tencent Cloud International, said at a media event in Singapore yesterday.
Tencent Cloud has expanded rapidly in Southeast Asia, including two local data centres in Thailand that have posted triple-digit growth, along with centres in Singapore and Indonesia.
The company will focus on three areas: capabilities enhancement, product internationalisation, and enhancing the partner ecosystem. The firm aims to introduce immersive convergence, which combines technologies in the real world to create an immersive experience.
"Leveraging Tencent's two decades of experience in serving and connecting over a billion users around the world on its consumer-facing platforms, Tencent Cloud is in a strategically strong position to help enterprises achieve 'Immersive Convergence', a concept that combines technology and the innovative approach of integrating the digital economy and the real world for a seamless connection," Mr Yeung said.
"We are driving the Asia-Pacific media services landscape, helping enterprises to achieve immersive convergence and accelerate their digital transformation journey into the eras of Web 3.0 and metaverse."
Tencent Cloud Media Services, a new international audio and video brand, features one-stop media solutions including real-time communication, video-on-demand, live-streaming, global acceleration, and security.
Carmen Zhu, research director at Frost & Sullivan, said integrated technologies, one-stop service offerings, low-code platforms, and enterprises going global are all potential opportunities for media service providers.
Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia have seen strong growth in media services as high internet penetration and government policy help develop the digital economy, the research firm said.
The Asia-Pacific media services market is projected to reach US$6.99 billion in 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 27% over the next four years thanks to video and audio consumption, live-streaming, subscription video on demand, e-commerce, online gaming and healthcare services.
Tencent Cloud is recognised as the No.1 provider in the media services market, according to Frost & Sullivan's "2022 Asia-Pacific Media Service Market Report".
Mr Yeung said it plans to launch "metaverse in a box", bundling tool kits powered by its cloud media service to accelerate the move to the metaverse.
Tencent Cloud provides more than 400 technologies and connectivity solutions that support immersive convergence through its global infrastructure network, covering more than 26 geographic areas across five continents and 70 availability zones, with more than 2,800 acceleration nodes and over 10,000 partners.
