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| The Huawei App Store is releasing Tencent Games |
Tencent Games was temporarily removed from the Huawei app store on Friday, the first day of the new year, after disputes between Chinese companies over revenue sharing from an ad contract.
Most of the time, Huawei App Store users will not be able to download Tencent games from Huawei AppGallery on Friday, including the most popular mobile game "King of Glory". However, Tencent games can still be installed over the phone or downloaded from other Android app stores.
The official announcement from the Huawei gaming community states: Tencent Games unilaterally made significant changes to the cooperation between the two sides, which is a major obstacle to the further development of cooperation. After a comprehensive review by our legal team, we had to comply with a related requirement to terminate cooperation and remove Tencent games from Huawei AppGallery.
Announcement added: Huawei appreciates the achievements and the absolute position of Tencent Games business in the market. While we don't agree, we can understand Tencent's request for the Tencent games business.
Tencent's online gaming business grew 45% year-over-year in the September quarter, the fastest growth since the third quarter of 2017, according to results announced in November.
A notice to the Tencent gaming community indicated that the game was suddenly deleted late at night because the mobile game promotion project agreement between the parties could not be renewed.
The announcement also highlighted that Tencent is actively communicating and negotiating with Huawei and hopes to re-implement the games as soon as possible.
On Friday evening, Tencent issued another notice that the company has entered into a contract with Huawei.
According to the announcement, Tencent Games has returned to Huawei's app store and the two sides will continue to work together to provide better customer experience and service.
When Apple and Google removed Fortnite from the App Store for violating Epic Games' in-app payment guidelines, a similar dispute erupted in the United States in August that prompted Epic Games to take legal action against the federal rule.
Huawei has insisted on withdrawing 50% of sales of Tencent games from its app store and removing Tencent games as the two companies could not reach an agreement.
Tencent sells some of the best online games in the world while Huawei's market share in China Mobile is 41.4% and global market share is 14.9%.
Many game developers are against Huawei's wagering requirements. The September report said that the Chinese games "Kingdom Rise" and "True Impact" failed to sign a deal with app stores, including Huawei, due to differences over how to share revenue.
For the Chinese tech giants, disputes with companies are rare in public places because those disputes are usually resolved in secret.
Tencent said in November that Honor of Kings had become the # 1 game on any platform, with an average daily active user of over 100 million.
As of November 2019, the Huawei App Store had more than 390 million active users worldwide, but it is still small compared to Google Play Store, which has 2 billion monthly active users at the same time.