Tencent, Alibaba mobile payment spat

Tencent launched its red envelope service on WeChat on Jan 26, 2014, several days ahead of last year's Spring Festival.

During the Spring Festival holiday in 2014, more than 8 million users participated in Tencent's campaign, which boosted Tencent's mobile payment service remarkably.

"Although the competition is disguised by 'sound reasoning', we can see that their real intention is to fight for market share," said Guo Tianyong, a professor with the Central University of Finance and Economics.

Guo said that suppressing the competition was not unusual.

The unbridled battle between Tencent and Alibaba, however, has effected end users and merchants on WeChat, where about 60 percent of transactions were conducted through Alipay, according to Ebrun, a Chinese e-commerce consulting firm.

"Alipay is suspended. You can switch to the Tencent payment service or use Alipay at our restaurant," according to a statement posted on "Russian Barbecue," a WeChat online merchant.

Tencent and Alibaba are too busy consolidating their own platforms and carving up the market, this does not reflect the inclusive feature of the Internet, Guo said.

Internet companies should be more cautious and regulators should step in when necessary to protect consumers' rights, he added.