Report: Huawei May Exempt WeChat From In-App Transaction Fees

Huawei is reportedly ready to let WeChat operate on Huawei’s mobile platform without sharing revenue.

The deal, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday (June 19), would be a concession by the China-based Huawei designed to maintain its recent lead over Apple in its home country.

Sources tell Bloomberg that this arrangement will allow Tencent — WeChat’s owner — to avoid fees for in-app transactions, and comes following months of negotiations between the two Chinese tech giants.

PYMNTS has contacted both companies for comment but has not yet gotten a reply.

WeChat would likely be an exception to Huawei’s plan to begin charging a fee for its app store, the Bloomberg report noted.

The news comes one day after reports that Huawei was considering an app fee commission that would be lower than the typical 30% charged by Apple and Google for payments on their mobile stores. It marks a change for Huawei, which has historically kept its Harmony operating system free of fees to woo developers and publishers.

A separate Bloomberg report — again citing unnamed sources familiar with the company’s plans — said Huawei has been discussing a 20% fee for games, which accounts for the large majority of its app store revenue. That fee, the report said, is markedly lower than the 50% charged by rival Android store operators in China.

In exchange, the sources said, Tencent will maintain and update the WeChat app, used by hundreds of millions of people in China each day for activities ranging from payments to gaming.

While super apps like WeChat are popular in China, they are still in their early stages in the U.S., though consumers are fans of the concept, as PYMNTS intelligence research shows.

For example, apps are already being used to manage an array of activities, especially banking, with 64% of American consumers using apps to manage their banking. More than half of Americans also use mobile apps to track spending and shop for groceries.

In all, nearly 100 million consumers in the U.S. and Australia would welcome a super app to help them multitask, the research found.

“As the world becomes more digitally connected, consumers are looking to trim any time they can from their day-to-day routines,” PYMNTS wrote last month. “Data shows consumers are more open to using a single app for shopping, scheduling and other chores, making the landscape ripe for a super app.”