Pony Ma, the reticent founder of Tencent Holdings, China's biggest social media and video games company, met with China's antitrust watchdog officials this month to discuss compliance at his group, two people with direct knowledge said.
The meeting
is the most concrete indication yet that China's unprecedented antitrust
crackdown, which started late last year with billionaire Jack Ma's Alibaba
business empire, could soon target other Internet behemoths.
Beijing has
vowed to strengthen oversight of its big tech firms, which rank among the
world's largest and most valuable, citing concerns that they have built market
power that stifles competition, misused consumer data and violated consumer
rights.
Tencent,
whose WeChat messaging and payment mobile app is ubiquitous in the world's
second-largest economy, is expected to be the next in line for sharper
antitrust regulatory inquiries, said the two people and a third person with
direct knowledge of the matter.
News of the
meeting, which has not been reported, comes ahead of Tencent's December quarter
results on Wednesday. Analysts expect a 42 percent rise in its quarterly
profit, according to Refinitiv data, although the investor focus will be on
regulatory developments.
Pony Ma, who
had been out of the public eye for more than a year, was in Beijing this month
for China's annual parliamentary meeting and visited the State Administration
of Market Regulation (SAMR) office the week before last, said the people.
The
billionaire Tencent founder is a parliamentary delegate with Guangdong
province, where the company is headquartered, and he requested the meeting with
SAMR deputy head Gan Lin and other senior officials, said the two people who
have direct knowledge.
Tencent and
SAMR did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.
At the
meeting, the two parties discussed how Tencent, Hong Kong's most valuable stock
with a market capitalisation of $776 billion, could better comply with
antitrust regulations, said one of the people.
Wu Zhenguo,
the head of SAMR's anti-monopoly bureau, who was also at the meeting, expressed
concern about some of Tencent's business practices, and asked the group to
comply with antitrust rules, said the second person.
The two
people said SAMR was gathering information and looking into monopolistic
practices by WeChat, and how the super app had possibly squashed fair
competition and squeezed smaller rivals.
It was not
immediately known if the SAMR officials pointed out to Tencent executives
specific cases of non-compliance of antitrust rules by the group, which is the
world's largest video gaming firm by revenue.
All the
sources declined to be named due to sensitivity of the matter.
© Reuters
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