Tencent invests up to $1bn into streaming services within 24 hours

Tencent Holdings has been investing in Twitch-style streaming services over the past week, spending more than $1 billion on two particular companies within a single day.

First, the company poured $632 million into Douyu, a China-based livestreaming platform that specialises in games and other entertainment content. Douyu confirmed this to China Money Network.

DouyuTV has a monthly active audience of 13 million users - higher than the reported nine million and 5.4 million achieved by rivals Huya and PandaTV respectively.

Less than 24 hours later, China Money Network reported that Tencent was the lead investor in a series B funding round for Huya. While Tencent's individual investment was not specified, the financing round raised a total of $461.6 million - meaning the company's investment over the course of the day could be close to $1 billion.

While Huya parent YY Inc retains control of the streaming service, Tencent has reportedly received the right to purchase additional shares in order to achieve a 50.1% stake.

The investment into Huya comes as prepares an Initial Public Offering in the United States. Meanwhile, Douyu is reportedly planning something similar in Hong Kong.

Tencent's ongoing investments into games companies and related services make it one of the industry's biggest players. Back in November, it was reported Tencent's market cap had passed $500 billion. Not only does this make Tencent the first Chinese tech company to accomplish this, this is also higher than EA, Activision, Ubisoft and Take-Two combined.