Chinese Didi says removal of app could hurt earnings

July 5 (Reuters) – Didi Global Inc (DIDI.N), China’s largest ridesharing company, said on Sunday that removing its “DiDi Chuxing” app from smartphone app stores in China is expected to have a negative impact on his income.

Earlier on Sunday, China’s cyberspace regulator ordered app stores to stop offering Didi’s app after discovering that the company illegally collected users’ personal data. Read more

“The company expects the removal of the app to negatively impact its revenue in China,” the company said in a statement.

Didi’s app removal, which doesn’t affect existing users, comes days after Didi debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in an initial public offering that raised $ 4.4 billion . Read more

In a document filed in June, Didi reported revenue of about 42.2 billion yuan ($ 6.5 billion) for the quarter ended March 31. Of that total, 39.2 billion yuan came from its mobility division in China, while about 800 million yuan came from its international activities.

Didi occupies a dominant position in the online carpool industry in China and operates in 4,000 locations in 16 countries. Read more

Didi said he will make every effort to rectify any issues and protect the privacy and security of users’ data.

Since late last year, Chinese internet regulators have cracked down on the country’s tech giants for breaking the rules more harshly.

The Global Times, a tabloid published by the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, People’s Daily, said in a comment in Chinese on Monday that Didi’s apparent “big data analysis” ability could pose security risks. personal information of individuals.

“No Internet giant can be allowed to become a super database of Chinese people’s personal information with more details than the country, and these companies cannot be allowed to use the data as they wish.” , said the Global Times.

Didi collects large amounts of real-time mobility data on a daily basis. It uses some of the data for autonomous driving technologies and traffic analysis.

In its IPO prospectus, Didi said that “we follow strict procedures for collecting, transmitting, storing and using user data in accordance with our data security and privacy policies.”

A senior Didi executive said on Saturday that the company stores all Chinese user and route data on servers around the country and that it was “absolutely not possible” for it to transmit data to the United States. Read more

($ 1 = 6.4721 Chinese yuan)

Reporting by Aakriti Bhalla in Bengaluru and Yilei Sun and Tony Munroe in Beijing; edited by Diane Craft and Edwina Gibbs

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