Tencent Music shares fell 1.5% in premarket trading.
Chinese regulators are set to order Tencent Holdings Ltd. to give up exclusive rights to music labels, Reuters reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
Tencent Music has long held a commanding lead in Chinese music through exclusive rights to a major chunk of Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group Corp.’s catalogs, which it then sublicenses to smaller platforms including those operated by NetEase, Alibaba and Xiaomi Corp. That dominance was weakened when NetEase struck deals to directly license songs from Universal and Sony.
The regulator on Saturday blocked Huya Inc.’s proposal to acquire rival DouYu International Holdings Ltd., killing a deal that would have helped cement Tencent’s lead in video game-streaming.