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China tech

Chinese antitrust regulator blocks Tencent's $5.3bn video games merger

Top streaming sites Huya and DouYu combined would command over 70% of market

People walk past a booth of live-streaming platform Douyu at the ChinaJoy digital entertainment expo in Shanghai in 2016. Tencent Holdings had planned to merge it with another affilate, Huya.   © Reuters

HONG KONG (Reuters) -- China's market regulator on Saturday said it would block Tencent Holdings Ltd's plan to merge the country's top two videogame streaming sites, Huya and DouYu, on antitrust grounds.

Tencent first announced plans to merge Huya and DouYu last year in a tie-up designed to streamline its stakes in the firms, which were estimated by data firm MobTech to have an 80% slice of a market worth more than $3 billion and growing fast.

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