Tencent, China's leading Internet community operator, said its net income jumped 16.2 percent year-on-year to 290 million yuan (37.5 million U.S. dollars) in the first quarter of 2007.

Sales soared 19.8 percent from a year earlier to 773 million yuan, the Shenzhen-based company said in a statement on its website.

Internet value-added services rose 14.9 percent to 502 million yuan on the back of strong activity through the winter vacation and the Spring Festival, Tencent's chairman Pony Ma said.

The company has 598 million instant messaging accounts, three percent higher than the fourth quarter of last year, according to the statement. While netizens often have several accounts, the statistic nevertheless represents almost one account for every two Chinese.

Tencent's instant messaging tool QQ is a household word in China and rivals MSN Messenger in popularity among new net users.

China had 144 million net users at the end of March, Xi Guohua, vice minister of Ministry of Information Industry, said on Thursday.

The company, which went public in Hong Kong in 2004, said its advertising sales surged 77 percent year-on-year to 74 million yuan.

Advertising sales in the first quarter of this year -- traditionally the weakest quarter in the advertising business -- were down 9.1 percent on the last quarter of 2006.