Tencent Q1 2026 earnings: AI growth speeds up, with strong Hy3 preview usage
On May 13, Tencent released its Q1 2026 earnings, showing steady growth and faster progress across AI.
Tencent reported Q1 revenue of RMB 196.46 billion, up 9% year-on-year. Non-IFRS operating profit reached RMB 75.63 billion, also up 9%.
A key highlight is Hy3 preview.
According to OpenRouter’s latest weekly leaderboard, Tencent’s call volume has ranked first in the overall OpenRouter rankings for three consecutive weeks. Hy3 preview also ranked first in tool-calling and second in coding.
This strong call-volume performance shows that developers are actively choosing Hy3 preview for real work, especially AI agent and tool-use tasks.
📌 Strong retention after monetization
After Hy3 preview moved to a paid model, call volume dropped by only about 20% from its free-tier peak of 530B+ tokens. That means around 80% of usage stayed.
This is important because paid usage is a clearer sign of trust. Developers had to decide whether Hy3 preview was worth paying for, and many kept using it.
📈 Strong value for performance
Hy3 preview also stands out on cost and performance. Claude Sonnet 4’s input price is said to be 45x higher than Hy3 preview, while GPT-4.1 is 30x higher. Even after monetization, Hy3 preview’s call volume was still 2.4x that of DeepSeek V4 Flash.
This shows Hy3 preview is not just cheaper. It gives developers strong performance at a price that makes large-scale use easier.
Tencent’s Q1 results show its AI strategy is moving fast. With Hy3 preview seeing strong call volume on OpenRouter and Tencent growing its AI products and cloud business, Tencent is strengthening its position in AI agents.
Hy3 preview’s recent usage shows strong market demand, and this may only be the beginning.
@TencentHunyuan @TencentAI_News