Tencent acquires majority stake in Miniclip

Chinese mobile and web game giant Tencent is now in control of Swiss game company Miniclip.

VentureBeat reports that the deal will expand Tencent’s ever-increasing presence in the European market. It already owns a majority stake in League of Legends creator Riot Games and a minority stake in Epic. It is also an Activision investor.

The Chinese outfit, despite being an unfamiliar name to many in the West, is actually the biggest games company in the world.

Tencent and Miniclip share the vision of bringing the most compelling and innovative games to our users,” Tencent’s the senior VP Steven Ma said. Miniclip has a strong track record in developing hit titles with long life span and universal appeal. We look forward to collaborating with Miniclip to deliver more exciting and enjoyable game experiences to fans worldwide.”

Miniclip CEO Robert Small added: To say that we are excited about having Tencent as a majority investor in Miniclip would be an understatement. This will empower us to do even more of what we do best, which is making great games. The Miniclip brand has been synonymous with fun, high quality games for more than a decade. Our brand strength, coupled with a huge organic audience, has really helped us to accelerate our growth by generating more than half a billion organic mobile downloads.”

Miniclip has since its inception in 2001 generated over half a billion mobile downloads and currently has in the region of 70m monthly active users.

The value of the move has not been revealed.