Benzinga | Nov 29, 2021 09:24AM EST

Tencent Further Opens Up Its "Walled Gardens" To Alibaba

China's regulatory crackdown compels Tencent Holdings Ltd (OTC:TCEHY) to allow soon WeChat groups to display links to external shopping sites like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's (NYSE:BABA) Tmall and Taobao, Bloomberg reports.

* Previously Tencent resisted dismantling WeChat's barriers for fear of diluting the experience and driving users to rivals like ByteDance Ltd's Douyin.

* Tencent will begin testing a function "soon" to allow group-chat participants to share links to third-party e-commerce platforms.

* Tencent looks to eventually allow WeChat's users more options for sharing content and promised to let them tweak settings to manage external sharing in the future.

* Tencent's signature app WeChat anchors the daily transactions of over a billion Chinese.

* Tencent previously allowed users who upgraded to the latest version of WeChat to share external links only in one-on-one conversations.

* Related Content: Tencent Relaxes Selective Content Access Following Regulatory Crackdown: Bloomberg

* Price Action: BABA shares traded higher by 0.75% at $134.35 in the premarket session on the last check Monday.