China allows Didi’s ride hailing app back into app stores

Chinese tech giant Didi announced on Monday that it has received an approval from regulators to bring its ride hailing app back to Chinese app stores, as reported by TechCrunch.

For ‘’illegally collecting user data’’, Didi’s mobile apps were removed from the country’s main app stores back in July 2021, just after the company raised more $4.4 billion in an upsized US IPO. In addition to the ban, Chinese regulators also opened an investigation into the company citing national security concerns, and the legal challenges caused it to lose $22 billion in market cap, Bloomberg reported at the time.

The same month, sources familiar with the matter told the WSJ that Didi was planning to go private to calm Chinese authorities. In late November 2021, the company said it would delist from the New York Stock Exchange.

Chinese regulators also fined Didi over 8 billion yuan ($1.28 billion) last July over its data collecting and processing practices. At the time, sources told the WSJ that the authorities could lift the ban on Didi’s mobile apps after the penalty.

In a Weibo post on Monday, Didi announced that the Cybersecurity Review Office has now approved the new user registration for its main ride hailing app ‘’Didi Chuxing’’.

“Our company has taken serious steps to cooperate with the country’s cybersecurity review, deal with the security issues found in the probe, and implement comprehensive from trectifications,’’ Didi said in the post. ‘’Going forward, the company will apply effective methods to ensure the security of the platform’s infrastructure and big data in order to safeguard national cybersecurity.’’