sales, is seeking more social games and e-commerce applications from third-party developers.

The company is “marching to open” its site to external developers, Tencent Chief Executive Officer Ma Huateng said at the TechCrunch conference in Beijing today.

Tencent is adding partners to expand its range of services to counter competition from Chinese rivals such as Baidu Inc., Sina Corp. and Renren Inc. Shenzhen, China-based Tencent will double a fund that invests in technology developers to 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) to search for new content and services and expand its user base, founder Ma said in June.

Tencent, also the provider of the most popular instant- messaging service in China, fell 1.1 percent to HK$184.90 as of 10:20 a.m. in Hong Kong trading. The stock has climbed 9.5 percent this year, underperforming shares of Baidu and Sina.

The company will continue to make “significant investments” in existing products and new strategic products including microblog, e-commerce and search, Tencent said in August when reporting second-quarter earnings.

Source:bloomberg.com