CRI听力:Tencent's Brawl Ends with Qihoo 360's Final Loss

Lawyers for Qihoo 360 and Tencent shake hands after the court trial at the Guangdong High People's Court in Guangzhou, Guangdong province on Thursday, March 28, 2013. [File Photo: CFP]

China's first ever lawsuit on the issue of monopolies in the Internet industry has come to an end, as the case between Tencent and Qihoo 360 closed at the China's Supreme People's Court.

The court rejected Qihoo's appeal and ordered that compensation be paid to Tencent.

For more on the case, here's CRI's Fei Fei.

The Supreme People's Court has rejected the appeal of Qihoo 360 on Tencent's market monopoly, saying "current evidence is not sufficient to prove Tencent's dominance of the market".

Qihoo was also ordered to pay 790 thousand yuan, or some 130 thousand U.S. dollars, to Tencent in legal fees.

Fan Yong is the legal director at Qihoo 360.

"We feel regret at the ruling in this case. Qihoo 360 is an innovative company and fighting against an Internet giant is a hard and new topic in both the judicial field and our industry. The four-year lawsuit has also attracted the attention of people from these areas. That also includes people from other countries. With this much attention, it is possible for us to build a good environment for innovation."

Xu Yan is deputy legal manager of Tencent.

"The ruling is very important for regulating competition in the Internet industry. Meanwhile, it will encourage and protect internet companies to grow through innovation"

Even though Tencent has taken up more than 80 percent of the market share, both in the PC-based and mobile instant messaging service markets, the nub of the court's ruling is about the definition of the market.

Wang Yong, deputy director of the Institute of Economics in Tsinghua University, explains why the court did not admit Tencent's dominance in the market.

"For example, you open five restaurants in Tsinghua University. Then your market share could be up to 90-percent here. But if we take the whole district into account, your share may fall to 30-percent. If the market further expands to the city of Beijing, you may only take some 10-percent share in it. So the range of the market would determine whether a company has dominated in the market or not."

Tencent has more than 1 billion registered users for QQ, the most popular online chatting tool in China, while Qihoo 360, a leading anti-virus software provider, has over 300 million clients.

The legal battle started four years ago, when Tencent released new anti-virus software.

Part of its functions were very similar to Qihoo's product, which then led to a drop in Qihoo's market share.

Qihoo appealed to the supreme court after losing the court bid in Guangdong.

For CRI, this is Fei Fei.