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The
people said the fine would be more than 8 billion yuan ($1.28
billion), accounting for about 4.7% of Didi's $27.3 billion
total revenue last year. They declined to be identified as the
information was not yet made public.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the potential size of the
fine earlier on Tuesday.
The ride-hailing firm did not immediately respond to a Reuters
request for comment.
Didi's fine would be the largest regulatory penalty imposed on a
Chinese tech company since e-commerce titan Alibaba Group and
delivery giant Meituan were fined $2.75 billion and $527 million
respectively last year by China's antitrust regulator.
Alibaba's fine equated to about 4% of its 2019 domestic sales,
while Meituan's was equivalent to 3% of its 2020 domestic sales.
Didi's penalty could pave the way for Beijing to ease a
restriction banning it from adding new users to its platform and
allow its apps to be restored on domestic app stores.
Didi, co-founded in 2012 by former Alibaba employee Will Wei
Cheng and backed by SoftBank Group and Uber Technologies,
previously set aside 10 billion yuan for a potential fine,
Reuters previously reported.
The company has struggled to bring its business back to normal
after angering Chinese regulators by pushing ahead with its $4.4
billion New York listing in June 2021 despite being asked to put
the float on hold.
Days after Didi went public, China's powerful internet watchdog,
the Cyberspace Administration of China, launched a cybersecurity
probe into the company's data practices and ordered app stores
to remove 25 mobile apps operated by Didi.
The restrictions have chipping away at Didi's dominance and
allowed rival ride-hailing services operated by automakers Geely
and SAIC Motor to gain market share.
The company announced it would delist from the New York Stock
Exchange in December, and won its shareholders' nod for the plan
in May.
Shares of Didi soared in their initial public offering (IPO),
giving the company a valuation of $80 billion. It was the
biggest U.S. listing by a Chinese firm since 2014.
Besides Didi, the CAC also launched cybersecurity reviews of
Full Truck Alliance and online recruitment firm Kanzhun Ltd July
2021.
Kanzhun and Full Truck Alliance said on June 29 the regulator
had given their apps the go-ahead to resume new user
registrations.
($1 = 6.7405 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Julie Zhu and Xie Yu in Hong Kong; Yingzhi Yang in
Beijing and Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni
and Edmund Blair)
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