Tencent Games restores in Huawei app store post dispute

Tencent Games and Huawei see to have buried the hatchet on a dispute, which resulted in Tencent games being removed from Huawei’s play store

In a quick turnaround of events, Huawei’s app store has reinstated Tencent’s online games today, after removing them from its store yesterday. The decision was initially undertaken by Huawei as the company stated that Tencent had made a big change in the manner in which both companies work with each other.

A revenue sharing debacle

Legal advisors at Huawei had recommended the move to the Chinese mobile giant as Tencent wanted to halt future cooperation. Tencent in its defense said that the existing business promotion agreement between the companies had expired before a new one could be formulated. Also as per Tencent, Huawei was insisting on a 50% sales share in Tencent’s game revenues on the app store and this was not acceptable to Tencent. The decision resulted in the Chinese version of Tencent Games’ Arena of Valor along with many other titles not available on Huawei’s online app store.

This is not the first instance of a game developer standing up to Huawei’s increased revenue demands. Mihoyo, a Shanghai-based developer, had last year opted out of placing its Genshin Impact game on Huawei’s app store due to the unprecedented commission clauses by Huawei.

A market compulsion in play

The initial authority by Huawei to remove Tencent games came from the fact that Tencent’s offerings are not available in China and it is therefore compelled to sell its apps through device manufacturers. This gives an upper hand to Huawei, which is the Asian country’s largest smartphone maker, owning 43% shipments in the quarter ended September 2020. It boasts of a 41.4% market share as of today.

When today, games from Tencent were re-added to Huawei’s app store, the US-based developer said in an official statement that both parties have mutually agreed to continue the joint collaboration and will strive to offer a better customer experience and service in the future. Huawei on its behalf also reiterated its commitment towards working in harmony so that customers do not suffer due to such operational bottlenecks.