ByteDance sues Tencent: China’s tech companies are now fighting each other

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Douyin – the Chinese version of TikTok’s short-form video app – claims Tencent (TCEHY) On Tuesday, the Shenzhen-based social media company alleged that it had abused its “market leadership” to eliminate competitors.
Beijing-based ByteDance-like TikTok, similar to TikTok, filed a lawsuit alleging that Tencent’s Wecenthat and QQ messaging apps prohibit their users from sharing content from Douyin for three years, the company said Tuesday in a statement it released on their official WeChat account. .

While CNN Business did not see the suit filed by the Beijing Intellectual Property Court, several state media outlets, including the Beijing Daily, have reported that Douyin is urging Tencent to lift its content restrictions and 90 million Yuan ($ 14 million) in economic and tax losses.

“We believe competition is better for consumers and encourages innovation,” a Douyin spokesman said in a statement to CNN Business. “We have filed this lawsuit. to protect our rights and the rights of our users. “

Tencent fire back, say enter his own statement Tuesday on WeChat that they plan to sue ByteDance, too.

“The relevant allegations from ByteDance are simply deceptive and malicious,” Tencent said. He accused Douyin of being “illegally obtained WeChat user information” and violation of user rights.

ByteDance and Tencent are two of the biggest players in Chinese social media. Tencent’s WeChat has more than 1.2 billion monthly active users, and its QQ app has nearly 700 million monthly active users. Doutein at ByteDance won’t be releasing monthly figures, but it said last month that it has around 600 million daily active users.

Both companies have been joking for a while. Since 2018, they have consistently accused each other of unfair competition, a controversy that has sometimes played out in the courts. Chinese media has even nicknamed the spat “Tou-Teng’s big fight,” a play on words using ByteDance news app “Toutiao” and Tencent’s Chinese name “Teng Xun.”

But the fight is taking on a new meaning now, coming at a time of upheaval in China’s technology industry.

In November last year, Chinese regulators withdrew a highly-anticipated public offering from Ant Group, a Jack Ma finance company. Alibaba. (BABA) Since then they have told the company to revitalize their business and have been criticized for expelling competitors from the market.

Regulators have also issued new directives that they say are intended to ban internet monopolies, and have even opened an investigation on Alibaba over anti-trust concerns.

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