IS TENCENT one of the world’s greatest internet firms? There are grounds for scepticism. The Chinese gaming and social-media firm started in the same way many local internet firms have: by copying Western success. QQ, its instant-messaging service, was a clone of ICQ, an Israeli invention acquired by AOL of America. And unlike global internet giants such as Google and Twitter, Tencent still makes its money in its protected home market.

　　腾讯是世界上最大的互联网公司之一吗?有持怀疑态度的理由。这个中国游戏和社交媒体公司跟许多本土互联网公司一样以同样的方式起步：通过抄袭西方的成功模式。腾讯的即时通讯服务QQ是一家被美国AOL收购的以色列发明的ICQ的翻版。而区别于谷歌和twitter等全球互联网巨头，腾讯仍然只在受保护的本土市场圈钱。

　　Yet the Chinese firm’s stockmarket valuation briefly crossed the $100 billion mark this week for the first time. Given that the valuation of Facebook, the world’s leading social-media firm, itself crossed that threshold only a few weeks ago, it is reasonable to wonder whether Tencent is worth so much. However, Tencent now has bigger revenues and profits than Facebook. In the first half of this year Tencent enjoyed revenues of $4.5 billion and gross profits of $2.5 billion, whereas Facebook saw revenues of $3.3 billion and gross profits of $935m.

　　然而，这家中国公司的股市估值这周首次超过了1000亿美元大关。鉴于全球领先的社交媒体公司facebook的估值只在几周之前才跨过这道门槛，所以换衣腾讯的市值是有道理的。然而，腾讯现在的收入和利润都比facebook多。今年前半年腾讯营收达到45亿美元，而总利润达到25亿美元，而facebook营收只有33亿美元，总利润只有9.35亿美元。

　　The Chinese firm’s market value reflects the phenomenal rise in its share price. A study out this week from the Boston Consulting Group found that Tencent had the highest shareholder total return (share-price appreciation plus dividends) of any large firm globally from 2008 to 2012—topping Amazon and even Apple.

　　这家中国公司的市场价值反映在其股价的惊人崛起上。这周波士顿咨询集团的一项研究发现，自2008年到2012年，在全球所有大公司中，腾讯拥有最高的股东总回报(股价升值加上分红)，超过了亚马逊甚至苹果。

　　Tencent has created a better business model than its Western peers. Many internet firms build a customer base by giving things away, be they search results or social-networking tools. They then seek to monetise their users, usually turning to online advertising. Google is a glorious example. Other firms try to make e-commerce work. But as the case of revenue-rich but profit-poor Amazon suggests, this can also be a hard slog.

　　腾讯比起西方同行创造了一个更好的商业模式。许多互联网公司基于送给人们东西作为搜索结果或者社交工具来让其成为消费者。他们接着寻求在他们用户身上套现，通常是提供在线广告。谷歌就是一个光辉典范。其他公司尝试电子商务活动。但是收入丰富但是利润甚微的亚马逊表明这也是一条艰难的路。

　　Tencent does give its services away: QQ is used by 800m people, and its WeChat social-networking app (which initially resembled America’s WhatsApp) has several hundred million users. What makes it different from Western rivals is the way it uses these to peddle online games and other revenue-raising offerings.

　　腾讯也给用户提供服务，有8亿人使用QQ，其微信社交应用(最初类似于Whatsapp)有几百万用户。其区别于西方对手的招数在于使用这些工具兜售在线游戏以及其他增加收入的服务。