Aloysius Low/CNET

Tencent Holdings has denied that it stores chat histories from WeChat, China's most popular messaging app.

The accusation came from Li Shufu, chairman of car company Geely, which owns Volvo. Shufu was quoted in Chinese media on Monday saying that Tencent's chairman "must be watching all our WeChats every day".

WeChat denied the "rumor" in a post on social media, quoted by Reuters. "WeChat does not store any users' chat history. That is only stored in users' mobiles, computers and other terminals," a representative for the company wrote.

"WeChat will not use any content from user chats for big data analysis. Because of WeChat's technical model that does not store or analyze user chats, the rumor that 'we are watching your WeChat everyday' is pure misunderstanding."

Tencent is one of China's three top tech companies, alongside e-commerce company Alibaba and search giant Baidu, which are collectively known as BAT. In November 2017, Tencent became the first company in Asia to be valued at over $500 billion. It owns stakes in tech companies such as Snap, Tesla and Riot Games, the maker of League of Legends.