The Chinese government said Monday that it has fined the country's IT giants, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and a Tencent Holdings Ltd. unit, 500,000 yuan ($76,500) each under anti-monopoly laws.

The punishment was the first since President Xi Jinping pledged last month to strengthen measures to curb monopolistic behavior and disorderly capital expansion of IT firms.

China's State Administration for Market Regulation said Alibaba, a Chinese company that has grown into one of the world's largest e-commerce businesses, failed to declare past acquisition of a stake in a department store chain.

Tencent runs the messenger app WeChat, which is believed to have at least more than a billion users around the globe. In China, many of its users link their bank accounts or credit cards to the payment service.