China’s regulatory crackdown compels Tencent Holdings Ltd (OTC:TCEHY) to allow soon WeChat groups to display links to external shopping sites like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s (NYSE:BABA) Tmall and Taobao, Bloomberg reports.
- Previously Tencent resisted dismantling WeChat’s barriers for fear of diluting the experience and driving users to rivals like ByteDance Ltd’s Douyin.
- Tencent will begin testing a function “soon” to allow group-chat participants to share links to third-party e-commerce platforms.
- Tencent looks to eventually allow WeChat’s users more options for sharing content and promised to let them tweak settings to manage external sharing in the future.
- Tencent’s signature app WeChat anchors the daily transactions of over a billion Chinese.
- Tencent previously allowed users who upgraded to the latest version of WeChat to share external links only in one-on-one conversations.
- Related Content: Tencent Relaxes Selective Content Access Following Regulatory Crackdown: Bloomberg
- Price Action: BABA shares traded higher by 0.75% at $134.35 in the premarket session on the last check Monday.
