Didi’s business slows from break-neck pace as on-site probes by China’s cybersecurity regulators gum up operations

Employees of Didi Chuxing have been forced to address technical demands from regulators as cybersecurity probe drags on. The review has forced the ride-hailing giant to make the investigation its top priority as it seeks to get its app back into app stores. — SCMP

The Chinese government’s unprecedented probes into Didi-Chuxing, also involving public security investigators, have gummed up business operations at the platform that dominated 90% of the country’s ride-hailing industry, according to several employees.

Engineers and product managers at the Beijing company, whose smartphone apps were removed from Android and Apple app stores in early July, are now busy writing up patches to close what Chinese regulators called technical loopholes in Didi’s data management system, according to staff who spoke on condition of anonymity. Several business units of the company have lowered their performance targets for 2021, which were set in January at the start of the financial year, because those goals were no longer realistic, given the review of the company’s business on July 16.