Microsoft said on Friday that China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) has unconditionally approved its acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The deal has been approved in 38 countries with a total population of 2.3B people according to Florian Mueller, founder of the FOSS Patents. While the UK government regulator the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced in April that it had blocked the deal.
The official statement has not been released on SAMR’s official website. Sources close to SAMR told The Esports Advocate that the “unconditional approval” is usually updated every ten days. The last release is on May 18 for approvals between May 4 – 14. It’s more likely that the official statement of the acquisition of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard will be released later in May.
In addition, sources close to Microsoft and Activision Blizzard in China told TEA that the SAMR’s decision was no surprise as Microsoft has a good relationship with China, and the deal would not affect the country’s interest.