London/Hong Kong (CNN Business) China has ordered Alibaba to pay a record fine of 18.2 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) after antitrust regulators concluded that the online shopping giant had been behaving like a monopoly.
The fine is equivalent to 4% of Alibaba's sales in China in 2019, state news agency Xinhua reported, and dwarfs the previous record penalty of $975 million handed out to American chipmakerin 2015.
Last month, Xi urged officials to step up their efforts to regulate online companies to maintain social stability.
Co-founded by legendary entrepreneur Jack Ma , Alibaba is one of China's most prominent and successful private businesses.
By making such a high-profile example, Chinese regulators are sending a clear message about their intent to rein in the country's most powerful companies.
"We discussed a broad range of topics, mainly focused on fostering innovation and creating a healthy environment for industry evolution.
Tencent has always and will continue to conduct our operations in compliance with relevant laws and regulations.". »