Ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing apologises for widespread service outage in China
- Some of the issues encountered by drivers and users include failure of the app’s navigation and ride-hailing functions
- Didi, which remains the top player in China’s nearly-saturated ride-hailing market, says the problems were caused by a ‘system failure’
Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing has reported a widespread service breakdown affecting users across major cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, according to the company and its users.
The Beijing-based company apologised for the app outage late on Monday, blaming it on a “system failure” in a post published on Didi’s account on Chinese microblogging service Weibo. The statement came hours after the service disruption affected some of its 400 million users in China, as well as drivers.
Eighty per cent of Chinese users surveyed by market intelligence service Statista earlier this year said they would choose Didi over similar services from operators including Meituan and HelloGlobal. The latter is backed by Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the South China Morning Post.
Across China, there are signs that the taxi-hailing market is near saturation. Guiyang, capital of southwestern Guizhou province, recently became the latest Chinese city to stop issuing ride-hailing business permits due to an oversupply of taxi services.
