WeChat's rival 'Bullet & # 39; removed from the App Store following a complaint for copyright infringement

BEIJING (Reuters) – The Chinese chat application Bullet Messenger, touted as a promising rival for Tencent Holdings Ltd's popular WeChat, said its app had been removed from Apple's Apple App Store only months after its release. launch due to a copyright infringement complaint.

Beijing Kuairu Technology, owner of Bullet, said in a social media article on Tuesday that it had been forced to withdraw the application after complaints were filed about the content of the image provided by a partner.

It was briefly the most downloaded free application of the Chinese App Store, with 5 million registered users within 10 days of its launch in August.

The company did not specify to which part of the application the copyright complaints were referring.

"We are checking the situation with the partner and we will inform you as soon as possible when download capabilities resume," the group said in a statement released on its official Weibo account on Tuesday.

Apple has not responded to a request for comment on why the application has been removed.

During checks conducted by Reuters on Tuesday, Bullet Messenger was still available at major Android app stores in China, including stores owned by Tencent, Baidu Inc. and Xiaomi Corp.

The rapid rise of Bullet surprised industry observers in a market heavily dominated by WeChat super-application, which has about a billion users and is virtually ubiquitous among Chinese smartphone users.

Bullet has earned a cult for features, including its minimal interface and the ability to transcribe speech into text in real time, but it lacks the broader features of WeChat, including payments.

Last year, Apple withdrew more than a thousand applications from its Chinese App Store under new stringent censorship laws as well as restrictions on gambling, although applications targeted by regulators typically disappear local application stores.

Among Bullet investors, Luo Yonghao, founder of smartphone maker Smartisan Technology, raised 150 million yuan ($ 21.68 million) on venture capital within seven days of launching the application.