UPDATE 2-Tencent hit with fresh anti-monolopy complaint, this time from GM China venture
(Recasts and writes through)
Feb 9 (Reuters) - Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltdhas become the target of a fresh anti-monopolycomplaint to regulators, this time from a supplier of smartvehicle technology and a General Motors Co China venture.
The supplier, Shanghai PATEO, in a statement accused Tencentof abusing its messaging app's dominant market position torestrict sales of its products.
PATEO offers voice recognition features and other mobileapplications that rely on Tencent's all-in-one WeChat app. Itadded that Tencent has been asking car companies to stop usingPATEO's Internet of Vehicles products since August 2020.
Tencent did not immediately respond to a request forcomment. The GM venture with with SAIC Motor Corp,which jointly submitted the request with PATEO, also did notimmediately reply to a request for comment.
The new complaint comes just a week after ByteDance'sChinese version of TikTok called Douyin accused Tencent ofmonopolistic behaviour and filed suit in a Beijing court,seeking 90 million yuan ($14 million) in compensation.
Tencent has described that claim has false and saidByteDance was illegally using its users' data.
Chinese regulators have stepped up anti-trust scrutiny oftech firms since December, launching a probe into e-commercegiant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and penalisingAlibaba-backed and Tencent-backed firms for not seekinganti-trust reviews for deals.(Reporting by Yilei Sun, Pei Li and Brenda Goh; Editing byEdwina Gibbs)
