BEIJING, Aug. 13 -- Leading Chinese Internet company Tencent, listed in Hong Kong, said Wednesday that its net profit jumped 59 percent year-on-year to 12.3 billion yuan (2 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half of this year.

Total revenue rose 37 percent from a year earlier to 38.15 billion yuan in the first half. Basic earnings per share stood at 1.332 yuan, the Shenzhen-based company said in a financial statement.

For the second quarter, total revenue rose 37 percent year-on-year to 19.8 billion yuan. Net profit jumped 59 percent to 5.8 billion yuan.

Tencent Chairman and CEO Ma Huateng said his company deepened mobile users engagement across social, games and media platforms in the second quarter.

Online advertising grew particularly strongly, benefiting from increased video traffic, the FIFA World Cup and performance advertising on Tencent's social platform, he said.

According to the statement, revenue from online advertising jumped 75 percent quarter-to-quarter to 2.06 billion yuan in the second quarter reflecting favorable seasonality in the second quarter, the positive impact of the World Cup and strategic cooperation with the online store JD.com.

In the second quarter, revenue from Tencent's value-added business increased by 9 percent quarter-to-quarter to 15.7 billion yuan. Online games revenues increased by 7 percent quarter-to-quarter to 11.1 billion yuan. It was primarily driven by revenue growth from smart phone games integrated with QQ and Weixin.

As of June 30, monthly active users of QQ accounts were 829 million, an increase of 1 percent year on year.

Combined monthly active users of instant messaging applications Weixin and WeChat were 438 million, an increase of 57 percent year-on-year.