Streaming price up at Tencent

Tencent (0700) raised its online streaming membership price to 238 yuan (HK$293.12) a year, or about 10 percent, after increasing it as much as 50 percent last April.

Tencent Video, the streaming unit of the tech giant, announced the latest price increase for its different subscription plans on Saturday, effective from April 20. Among them, the monthly subscription plan would be up from the current rate of 20 yuan to 25 yuan.

It said in its annual results earlier that in view of the latest market conditions, it is implementing a cost optimization process to reduce financial losses at Tencent Video while maintaining its leading position.

Last week, Tencent said it will shut down its gaming streaming platform Penguin Esports by early-June as it sharpens its businesses following a regulatory crackdown.

The company said on its official WeChat account that the decision to shut down the six-year-old platform, where hosts could live-stream themselves playing games in a model similar to Amazon's Twitch, was made because of changes to its business development strategy.

It did not elaborate.