Tencent marked 20 years since its founding with a torrid 2018, as pressure from above put the squeeze on its core games business. This year, it has been hit from below by younger, more agile rivals led by ByteDance.

The Chinese technology giant disappointed last week, with quarterly revenues of Rmb88.82bn ($12.9bn) falling short of analyst expectations of Rmb93.41bn. Advertisers were keeping a lid on budgets in the difficult macroeconomic climate but its WeChat messaging app has also been facing competition in selling ad space, from rivals including Douyin, the fast-growing short-video app from ByteDance.

Executives on its earnings call appeared to be struggling to chart a course that would revive its fortunes. Instead, the impression was of a company battling problems, from geopolitics to competition at home, with a horribly depleted arsenal.