Chinese rivals seek to profit

GUANGZHOU, China – Rivals of Chinese rideshare giant Didi are trying to eat into the company’s market share as it faces crackdown from regulators.

Days after Didi’s initial public offering earlier this month, Chinese regulators opened a cybersecurity review at the company.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) also ordered app stores in China to remove Didi from the download, alleging that the company illegally collected users’ personal data. No new user can register.

Authorities last week ordered 25 other apps operated by Didi to be removed from app stores.

Didi’s regulatory woes left the door open for competitors to cut into the company’s roughly 90% market share.

Last week, food delivery company Meituan relaunched a standalone ridesharing app that had already been pulled from app stores in 2019.

Another rival called T3 plans to expand to 15 cities, according to an internal memo cited by local media. T3 is a company of three major Chinese automakers and is backed by tech giants Tencent and Alibaba. The company served ads on Tencent’s WeChat messaging service, which has more than one billion users. Anyone who clicks on the ads is offered discount coupons for using the service.

Meanwhile, Cao Cao, a ridesharing service run by automaker Geely, is offering big discounts to new users of its service.

Didi has emerged as the dominant player, with nearly 500 million annual active users, thanks to aggressive expansion over the years following the takeover of Uber’s China business in 2016.

But the company has been caught up in Beijing’s crackdown on its tech companies, especially as regulators tighten data security rules.

Regulators are also stepping up their oversight of all Chinese companies that wish to register overseas, like Didi. On Saturday, the ACC said any company with the data of more than one million users must undergo a security review before proceeding with a foreign stock listing.