Booth of Tencent Cloud at the China International Big Data Industry Expo 2021 in Guiyang, Southwest China's Guizhou Province on May 27, 2021 Photo: Chi Jingyi/GT

China's tech giant Tencent's bid to acquire the country's second largest search engine Sogou has been granted unconditional approval by market regulators, according to public information released by State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) on Tuesday. 

Tencent's stock prices spiked on Tuesday, up 5 percent as of Tuesday noon on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the sharpest rise since April this year. 

In July last year, Tencent said that it intended to wholly acquire Sogou at a price of $9 per share. The search engine was listed on New York Stock Exchange in 2017, and in September last year, Sogou said it has reached a privatization deal.

The acquisition has aroused some controversy among Chinese netizens, with some worrying that if Sogou could monopolize China's searching business area with help of Tencent's resources and capital.

Tech analyst Liu Dingding nevertheless said that there are no such risks, because with Baidu taking about half of market share in the China's searching business and 360 being a market giant, Sogou is incapable of holding monopoly status in the field.

"It shows that although the government is taking action against monopoly, it isn't tarring companies with the same brush. Instead, the authorities are treating each acquisition case differently according to their own nature," he told the Global Times. 

According to Liu, the acquisition could benefit Sogou to a great extent in that the company's technologies like voice recognition and searching need significant big data enhancements and to be applied to real scenarios, which Tencent could help a lot with its cloud services and huge customer base.

Chinese authorities have been increasing their scrutiny over monopoly of internet giants in the country. On Monday, Tencent was reported to be required to give up its exclusive copyright. It was also reportedly required pay up to 500,000 yuan ($77,350) of fine for acquiring its two music streaming platforms, Kugou and Kuwo. 

Global Times