Huawei removes Tencent Games from its App Store over disputes: Reports

Huawei Technologies Co. removed Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s online games offering from its app store as some terms of revenue structure is not being agreed upon and some terms of cooperation have changed between the two technology giants.

According to an official announcement posted on Huawei’s gaming app, the games were removed after Tencent made a “big change” on Dec. 31 to how the companies work with each other, no elaborate details were provided.

Huawei smartphones use their own play store to offer games even though most smartphones in China use Google’s Android operating system, the Google PlayStore isn’t available on Huawei smartphones, and apps are instead sold by mainland manufacturers and others. Chinese tech giant, Huawei, was the biggest smartphone maker in Asia’s biggest economy during the September quarter with 43% of shipments, according to Counterpoint Research.

According to a report from Bloomberg, Huawei’s decision is based on the premise that Tencent is unilaterally asking to halt cooperation and that its decision has been taken after its legal team assessed the situation.

A report from Reuters, however, suggests that the issue is related to revenue-sharing arrangements. The games were removed because Huawei insists on receiving a 50% cut, Reuters’ source said.

If revenue agreement is the case, then this is not the first time that Huawei’s revenue demands have been an issue for game developers, as Shanghai-based developer Mihoyo decided not to place its hit game “Genshin Impact” last year on Huawei’s app store because it did not agree with the commission structure for sales.

Tencent’s game products were removed from Huawei’s app store early Friday when the promotion agreement expired before a new one could be reached between the two tech giants, a check on Huawei’s app store showed that games such as the Chinese version of Arena of Valor developed by Tencent are not available. 

A Tencent spokesperson responded to Bloomberg’s inquiries.

“We are communicating and negotiating with Huawei’s mobile game platform for a solution, and hope to resume our services soonest possible,” they said.