Tencent moves money online through WeChat

The battle between China's Internet titans intensified as Tencent Holdings Ltd started allowing its WeChat users to make online payments on Monday, a move that taps into the lucrative e-commerce market, which is dominated by its archrival Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

The WeChat platform, a mobile social networking application developed by Tencent, China's largest Internet company by market capitalization, released its version 5.0 on Monday, in the product's biggest update since it was launched in January 2011.

"Through WeChat, any person or any business can get all kinds of valuable services in a much more convenient way," said Zhang Xiaolong, senior vice-president of Tencent, in an official company statement.