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Still largely unknown in Germany, but already a big hit on Wall Street: Didi
Photo: FLORENCE LO / REUTERS
The Chinese driver service broker Didi Chuxing was targeted by Chinese officials shortly after its IPO in New York.
The Beijing cyberspace regulator ordered the deletion of the Didi app from Chinese app stores.
During an investigation, "serious violations" were found in the collection and use of personal data by Didi, it said.
The company must first solve the problems.
Didi announced that it had already stopped registering new users on July 3rd and is now working on correcting its app in accordance with regulatory requirements.
Users who have already installed the app can continue to use it normally.
The Uber rival announced that they would cooperate fully.
Broadside against China's tech giants
Didi shares had already fallen more than five percent on Friday after regulators announced an investigation into the company. When Didi's stock market debut on Wednesday, the price of Didi's securities had risen significantly, bringing the company to a market value of around $ 80 billion at times. This would put the group almost within striking distance of its major US rival Uber, which currently has a market capitalization of just under $ 95 billion.
It is unclear whether the Chinese authorities are actually driving the suddenly awakened concern about the protection of its citizens' data.
The supervisory authorities in Beijing had recently targeted a number of Chinese Internet companies and announced stricter rules for them.
In April, China's competition watchdogs imposed a record fine of 18 billion yuan (equivalent to 2.3 billion euros) on the Chinese Internet giant Alibaba.
Last year, Alibaba had to cancel the IPO of its financial subsidiary Ant Group at short notice by order of the authorities.
beb / dpa
