Huawei removes Tencent games in dispute over cooperation

Huawei has removed Tencent’s games from its app store in a spat over cooperation between the Chinese technology giants.

Huawei said its decision followed an assessment by its legal team and was based on the premise that Tencent is unilaterally asking to halt cooperation. (REUTERS)

Huawei Technologies removed Tencent Holdings Ltd.'s games from its app store in a spat over cooperation between the Chinese technology giants.

The action was taken after Tencent made a “big change” on December 31 to how the companies work with each other, according to an official announcement posted on Huawei's gaming app. It didn't elaborate on details of the change.

While most smartphones in China use Google's Android operating system, the US company's Play store isn't available and apps are instead sold by mainland manufacturers and others. Huawei was the biggest smartphone maker in the country during the September quarter with 43% of shipments, according to Counterpoint Research.

Huawei said its decision followed an assessment by its legal team and was based on the premise that Tencent is unilaterally asking to halt cooperation. A check on Huawei's app store showed that Tencent games such as the Chinese version of Arena of Valor are no longer available.

Tencent didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Bloomberg News.