Black Shark Technologies

Black Shark Technologies is a manufacturer of smartphones, software and game accessories. By January 2022, the company has offices in China, Europe and South Asia.

History

2022: Tencent bought Black Shark

In early January 2022, it became known about the sale of Black Shark to Tencent. The latter will join the purchased manufacturer of gaming smartphones and accessories to its division Content Business Group. The deal was announced after Tencent President Martin Lau called the metaverse a real possibility, adding that acquisitions of specialized developers may be required to implement this concept.

We have many technologies and building blocks that will allow us to approach the possibility of a metaverse in different ways. We believe that all that really makes the virtual world more real and enriches the real world with virtual experience is what can become part of the metaverse. This direction of business is attractive for Tencent, but the path is a little foggy. There will be a different set of rules for the Chinese market, but we considered that this is not a fundamental obstacle to the development of the metaverse, because it itself will be controlled by technology, "said Martin Lau.

Tencent bought Black Shark

It is assumed that the Black Shark brand will be expanded after the completion of the transaction - in particular, it is expected to create virtual reality (VR) devices under it, and Tencent will develop software for such equipment. According to the publication TechInAsia, since technology companies are moving in the direction of AR/VR, especially after the advent of metaverse, it was only a matter of time before Chinese Tencent also took its step. In the third quarter of 2021, the brand even applied for a number of brands for metaverse technologies. Black Shark and Tencnet previously collaborated on the development of game smartphones.

Lau said Tencent has several ways to achieve the metaverse, citing as an example the company's leadership in games and social networks that rely on Tencent's capabilities in game engines and artificial intelligence, and its large server architecture can accommodate a huge number of simultaneous users. Martin Lau noted that the company has experience in managing the digital content economy, as well as digital assets in real life, which will help it move towards the metaverse.^[1]

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