The American sportswear brand made the announcement to its mainland Chinese users via the app on Wednesday morning and thanked them for their support.
He did not explain the reason for his decision, but a spokesperson for the company told Reuters that it plans to provide Chinese riders with an “improved and localized solution in the future”.
Nike offers the app, which allows users to track their runs and challenge their friends to compete, in multiple countries. It has over 8 million users in China, the company’s most profitable market.
“Thank you for every race with us!” Nike said in a statement.
“It is with sadness that NRC APP will cease service and operation in your market from July 8.”
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Nike told Reuters it continues to invest in its Nike Sport Marketplace in China.
“We are creating a China-for-China ecosystem, specifically tailored to the unique needs of consumers in the region to better serve athletes,” the company spokesperson said.
“We will continue to serve Chinese riders with an improved and localized digital solution in the future.”
Over the past year, other U.S. tech brands, including Linkedin and Yahoo, have stopped offering or scaled back their services to users in mainland China, citing reasons ranging from censorship to increased compliance requirements. .
China has imposed new restrictions on internet companies in areas such as content, and has also imposed new laws, such as the Personal Information Protection Law, designed to protect the privacy of user data.
Posts about the shutdown of the NRC app garnered more than 70,000 views on social media platform Weibo, with many users sad to see the service come to an end.
“I’ve been using the app for seven years, and it will stop like this,” said one user.
“Every step I ran was recorded here,” another Weibo user said, ending the post with three teary emojis.
