Less than ten years from its public listing, Tencent Holdings Inc's market value had surpassed USD100 billion. This pushed the company to become Asia's largest Internet firm and much of its growth is hinged on the explosive growth of China in the gaming and messaging markets.

Tencent's share values jumped 2.5% to HKD421.20 in the Hong Kong index, increasing its market value to HKD782.8 billion or USD101 billion. The company is one of six other Hong Kong listed firms to reach the USD100 billion plateau, amongst them PetroChina Co and China Mobile Ltd.

The online population in China grew almost seven times since Tencent's 2004 IPO. The revenues for the Shenzhen based firm more than doubled in the past two years. Now, the online gaming sales revenues for China is projected to reach CNY1.3 trillion or USD212.4 billion by 2016 from just CNY66.2 billion in 2012. The figures come from IResearch, an Internet based consulting firm based in Shanghai.

Tencent currently has a market capitalization that is larger than Boeing Co, McDonald's Corp and SoftBank Corp. Only a handful of other technology based firms are larger than Tencent, with the few as Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Samsung Electronics.