China Clears Tencent Tie-Up With Rival

Tencent and state-owned telecommunications company China Unicom have received regulatory approval to set up a joint-venture company, a public document showed on Wednesday.
The State Administration for Market Regulation approved the application, based on a list it published on its website.

The regulator first disclosed details of the as yet unnamed company in September, when it published a document describing it as an entity focused on three areas: internet data centres, content delivery networks and edge computing, which is the use of augmented reality and machine learning to analyse bulk data.

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Unicom Innovation Venture Capital, a subsidiary of China Unicom, will control 48% of the new company while the Shenzhen Tencent Industry Venture Capital, a subsidiary of Tencent, will control 42%, based on the document published in September. The additional 10% will go to the company’s employees, this document said.

In a statement released on Wednesday evening, China Unicom said the joint venture was formed to fulfill the company’s “strategic need to comprehensively foray into the digital economy”. It said that Tencent is a long-term strategic investor in the Unicom Innovation Venture Capital.