Tencent’s WeChat blocks ByteDance work-from-home app as China’s telecommuting war heats up amid coronavirus lockdown

The enterprise collaboration industry in China is forecast to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 12.4 per cent over five years to reach US$7 billion by 2024

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Tencent Holdings has been accused of using its market dominance with super app WeChat to stifle competition. Photo: Reuters

Published: 6:00pm, 2 Mar 2020Updated: 10:43pm, 2 Mar 2020

Tencent Holdings’ super app WeChat, with a user base of 1.2 billion people, has blocked links for a ByteDance remote work tool, as Chinese tech giants fight for dominance in the burgeoning enterprise collaboration market.

The latest move adds another ByteDance app to WeChat’s blacklist – which already includes Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, and its sister platform Xigua Video – amid ongoing accusations that Tencent uses its market dominance to stifle competition.

Feishu, the Chinese version of ByteDance's productivity tool Lark, said on Saturday that users could not open any of its links on WeChat, nor could they share name cards to invite colleagues.

Feishu said WeChat did not provide advance notice of the ban, adding that the move has “significantly affected work efficiency and user experience” at a time when many companies in China have moved their office operations online to limit the spread of coronavirus infections.

Instead, users need to copy the link and open it in a browser, instead of opening the app directly via WeChat.

A WeChat representative declined to comment other than to cite the company’s regulations on external links. The rules, introduced in October 2019, said the platform will punish websites or apps that send links to “mislead or entice users to download or redirect to an external app”. Punishment includes blocking their domain name from opening in WeChat.