Tencent’s WeChat blocks ByteDance work-from-home app as China’s telecommuting war heats up amid coronavirus lockdown
- The enterprise collaboration industry in China is forecast to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 12.4 per cent over five years to reach US$7 billion by 2024
Tencent Holdings’ super app WeChat, with a user base of 1.2 billion people, has blocked links for a ByteDance remote work tool, as Chinese tech giants fight for dominance in the burgeoning enterprise collaboration market.
Feishu, the Chinese version of ByteDance's productivity tool Lark, said on Saturday that users could not open any of its links on WeChat, nor could they share name cards to invite colleagues.
Feishu said WeChat did not provide advance notice of the ban, adding that the move has “significantly affected work efficiency and user experience” at a time when many companies in China have moved their office operations online to limit the spread of coronavirus infections.
Instead, users need to copy the link and open it in a browser, instead of opening the app directly via WeChat.
A WeChat representative declined to comment other than to cite the company’s regulations on external links. The rules, introduced in October 2019, said the platform will punish websites or apps that send links to “mislead or entice users to download or redirect to an external app”. Punishment includes blocking their domain name from opening in WeChat.