Nasdaq-listed Chinese IT company Sohu Inc. denied a rumor on Friday that tech-giant Tencent will acquire its video streaming subsidiary.
NetEase’s Tech news portal quoted an anonymous source from Sohu saying the acquisition was a pure rumor spread online.
The rumor originally came from tech news website Huxiu.com. Huxiu posted a screenshot of an internet user’s chat record on a social network app, Maimai, saying that Tencent will invest USD one billion in Sohu, and that Tencent will confirm this acquisition in three days.
Sohu’s business is mainly focused on gaming, their search engine and video streaming. Sohu’s 2015 third quarter report shows the company achieved USD 522 million in revenue. The company’s video business generated USD 57 million of that revenue, an increase of 9% YoY.
There are bigger players in the video streaming market, notably iQIYI, Tencent Video and Youku. Sohu ranked fourth in user-numbers, according to a Talking Data report.
(Top photo from Sohu.com; Charles Zhang, founder and CEO of Sohu.com)
