A war in cyberspace, in anticipation of a sharpening contest for web-based commerce, between China’s two rival social media heavyweights, Sina Weibo and Tencent, has escalated sharply.
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On Tuesday, Sina Weiba, a micro-blogging platform owned by the Alibaba group, an e-commerce giant, began to ban users promoting WeChat, run by rival Tencent, on its service. Chinese state-media reported that the move came after WeChat shut down on its site the promotion channel of Kuaidi Dache, a taxi-hailing service, in which Alibaba has a stake. Alibaba and Tencent compete fiercely on all fronts, including internet finance and online commerce.
Though the two platforms are not head-to-head competitors - Sina Weiba is more like a Twitter adaptation and WeChat, a Chinese style Facebook with a difference - they do vie for time and mindshare of China’s social media.
On Tuesday, Sina Weibo did not directly name WeChat as the target, but said that those users would be banned who aggressively spread QR code and other commercial information. WeChat, which uses QR code scanning as its main promotion tool, was hit hardest by the decision.
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Analysts say that intensity of the rivalry between the two Chinese companies has grown after Sina Wiebo’s users dropped by nine per cent to 281 million in 2013. On the contrary, WeChat is attracting more eyeballs than ever before.