Tencent hit with anti-monopoly complaint from GM China venture

Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd has become the target of a fresh anti-monopoly complaint to regulators, this time from a supplier of smart vehicle technology and a General Motors Co China venture.

The supplier, Shanghai PATEO, in a statement accused Tencent of abusing its messaging app's dominant market position to restrict sales of its products.

PATEO offers voice recognition features and other mobile applications that rely on Tencent's all-in-one WeChat app. It added that Tencent has been asking car companies to stop using PATEO's internet of Vehicles products since August 2020.

Tencent did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The GM venture with SAIC Motor Corp, which jointly submitted the request with PATEO, also did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The new complaint comes just a week after ByteDance's Chinese version of TikTok called Douyin accused Tencent of monopolistic behaviour and filed suit in a Beijing court, seeking 90 million yuan (roughly R207.6m) in compensation.

Tencent has described that claim has false and said ByteDance was illegally using its users' data.

Chinese regulators have stepped up antitrust scrutiny of tech firms since December, launching a probe into e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and penalising Alibaba-backed and Tencent-backed firms for not seeking antitrust reviews for deals.