Huya to buy DouYu to create China's Twitch rival

Huya Inc. has agreed to buy DouYu International Holdings Ltd. in a deal expected to close in the first half of 2021. The resulting business will become China’s biggest game-streaming company worth over $11 billion.

The two streaming companies belong to Tencent (it holds a 37% stake in Huya and 38% of DouYu), which will own around 68% of the merged entity’s voting shares, according to Bloomberg. Since the acquisition of a controlling stake in Huya, Tencent has been the dominant player in China’s games streaming market. Following the creation of the newly merged company, Tencent will continue to command the game-streaming market that is estimated to generate 23.6 billion yuan ($3.5 billion) in revenue this year.

Tencent has been in talks with Huya and DouYu about the merger since July.