(Yicai Global) Jan. 4 -- Huawei Technologies removed all of Tencent Holdings’ game titles from its app store at midnight on New Year’s Eve as the pair disputed how to split gaming revenues, according to people familiar with the matter.

One-stop game services platformHuawei GameCenter said it had no choice but to remove the titles from Huawei Mobile Services after Tencent Games made significant changes on Dec. 31 to an existing deal between Huawei, China’s most popular phone maker, and Tencent, the country’s biggest game publisher.

The pair had failed to renew the agreement as scheduled, Tencent Games said on Jan. 1. But they did later the same day and the games were reinstated on HMS, though the specifics have yet to be revealed.

Shenzhen-based Huawei “insists” on a 50 percent share of earnings, according to a Reuters report on Jan. 1. That is in line with how all leading Chinese smartphone brands including Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications, Vivo Communication Technology and Lenovo Group divide earnings.

But since mid-2019 Tencent has preferred a split along the lines of US tech giants Apple and Google which take 30 percent of revenue from apps on their respective App and Play stores, with the rest going to publishers.

Shenzhen-based Tencent has been trying to introduce into China the distribution ratio used overseas for the past two years, but it is not a simple issue as domestic distribution channels are more complicated, an industry insider told Yicai Global.

The mobile services that come pre-installed on Chinese smartphones have become a key distribution channel for game publishers in the country. Gone are the days when players would download games from a developer’s website or app. Now, China’s youth are introduced to titles via gaming communities and forums, WeChat accounts, image-text content platforms and by word of mouth.

Editors: Liao Shumin, Kim Taylor