Tencent Holdings, operator of QQ, China’s biggest instant messaging service, remains optimistic regarding the impact on its business of  slowing economic growth.

Jeff Xiong, the company’s chief technology officer, said it expected an economic slowdown would affect the Internet industry.

“The impact, however, would vary among different types of businesses,” said Xiong, quoted by Hong Kong media.

Companies like Alibaba and Baidu, which depend more on a business-to-business model, would suffer more, he suggested.

“For us, we rely more on individual users. The impact should be less.”

Tencent, which  had 270 million registered users at the end of last year, derived 13.9 percent of its revenue in the second quarter of the year from online advertising on QQ and on its portal QQ.com. It derived 64 percent of its revenue from online games and the sale of virtual items such as online pets and avatars. The rest of its revenue came from providing value-added services for mobile phones.

Analysts expect China’s GDP growth next year to slow to 9 percent from last year’s 11.9 percent and this year’s anticipated 10 percent.