Signage astatine the Trip.com Group Ltd. office gathering successful Shanghai, China, connected Monday, Aug. 28, 2023.
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Shares of Chinese online question services supplier Trip.com plunged astir 22% successful Hong Kong connected Thursday aft Beijing opened an antitrust probe into the company.
China's State Administration for Market Regulation precocious Wednesday said it was investigating Trip.com owed to "suspected maltreatment of its ascendant marketplace presumption and monopolistic practices," according to a CNBC translation of the connection successful Mandarin.
Trip.com is the largest online question supplier successful Asia by marketplace cap, and 1 of the biggest globally. The institution has stakes successful UK formation aggregator Skyscanner, Indian question company MakeMyTrip, arsenic good arsenic respective Chinese question providers.
Trip.com said in a statement it would "actively cooperate" with the investigation, and added its concern operations were functioning arsenic usual.
The probe comes arsenic Chinese tourism is expected to surge this year, with question selling and exertion steadfast China Trading Desk estimating that mainland Chinese travelers are expected to instrumentality astir 165 cardinal to 175 cardinal cross-border trips successful 2026, up from an estimated 155 cardinal past year.
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