Nike Stops Nike Run Club App In China

JAKARTA - Nike Inc, the world's largest sportswear maker, is discontinuing its popular Nike Run Club (NRC) App in China starting Wednesday, June 8. The sportswear brand from the US . made the announcement to users in mainland China via the app on Wednesday morning and thanked them for their support.

Nike did not give a clear reason for the decision but a company spokesman told Reuters it plans to provide Chinese runners "an improved and localized solution in the future".

Nike offers an app, which allows users to track their runs and challenge friends to compete, in several countries. The app has more than 8 million users in China, which has been Nike's most profitable market by far.

"Thanks for every run with us!" Nike said in a statement. "Unfortunately NRC APP will be discontinuing services and operations in your marketplace from July 8th."

Nike told Reuters it continues to invest in the Nike Sport Marketplace in China.

"We created an ecosystem from China for China, specifically catering to the unique needs of consumers in the region to better serve athletes," said a company spokesperson.

"We will continue to serve Chinese runners with enhanced, localized digital solutions in the future," Nike added in the announcement.

Other US tech brands, including Linkedin and Yahoo, last year also stopped offering or scaled back services to users in mainland China. They reasoned that the amount of censorship and increased compliance requirements made it difficult for companies to grow.

The Chinese government has imposed new restrictions on internet companies in areas such as content. Beijing has also enacted new laws, such as a law on the protection of personal information which is designed to protect the privacy of user data.

The post about NRC's app closing garnered more than 70.000 views on social media platform Weibo, with many users saddened to see the end of the service.

"I've been using this app for seven years, and it's just going to stop like this," said one user.

"Every step I take is recorded here," said another Weibo user, ending the post with three crying emojis.