From Ben Lovejoy's "Apple’s Didi investment flop sees company exec quietly resign from the board" posted Wednesday on 9to5Mac:
Apple’s Didi investment back in 2016 was hailed by the Cupertino company’s CEO Tim Cook as a “great financial investment.” Sadly, that very much turned out not to be the case.
The investment has instead seen Apple’s billion-dollar stake lose at least 80% of its value, and the company’s sole representative on the Didi board has now quietly resigned.
While things initially looked rosy, with Didi last year filing for an IPO valuing the company at around $100B, it wasn’t long afterward that things started to go badly wrong.
The Chinese government declared that Didi had been illegally collecting user data, fined the company, and ordered Apple to remove the app from the App Store.
Earlier this year, Didi Global Inc. delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, wiping out around $70B of its market value.
My take: I assumed when Tim Cook announced the Didi investment that he was doing it, in part, to curry favor with China's leaders. Looks like I was wrong about that.
While Apple carefully tailors and preserves an image of perfection across their business and products, it’s always good to remember that nobody and nothing operates perfectly.
Well, that’s suspicious all by itself. Apple’s involvement looks to have upset an “apple” cart…
Sorry. Couldn’t resist the pun.