10 smartphone firms join hands to take on Tencent

The top 10 Chinese smartphone vendors, including Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and Xiaomi Corp, joined hands on Tuesday to promote technical standards for "fast apps," which are designed to compete against Tencent Holdings Ltd's mini programs.

The move came after Tencent's mini programs lured a significant part of revenue away from smartphone companies' app stores.

This is also part of the hardware makers' broader push to wrestle with software companies for control over user data, the big prize in the emerging era of artificial intelligence.