China's ride-hailing giant Didi offers coupons to apologise for app glitch

"With regards to orders that were affected during the systems failure period, we will finish settling the accounts within 24 hours and we will refund passengers the difference if they had overpaid," it said in the notice. "At the same time, we have prepared a 10 yuan ride-hailing discount coupons for all our users to compensate and apologise." The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how many users will be eligible for the coupon. Didi's China service recorded average daily transactions of 31.3 million in the third quarter, according to its latest results.

China's Didi Global on Wednesday offered millions of its customers coupons worth 10 yuan ($1.40) as part of an apology for a glitch that hit its ride-hailing app this week.

In a pop-up on the app, the company also said it would compensate users who had overpaid for rides. On Monday evening, the app experienced a system malfunction which left users in several cities unable to book rides, and users continued to encounter glitches through Tuesday.

Didi has 587 million users worldwide, most of them in China. "With regards to orders that were affected during the systems failure period, we will finish settling the accounts within 24 hours and we will refund passengers the difference if they had overpaid," it said in the notice.

"At the same time, we have prepared a 10 yuan ride-hailing discount coupons for all our users to compensate and apologise." The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how many users will be eligible for the coupon.

Didi's China service recorded average daily transactions of 31.3 million in the third quarter, according to its latest results. Earlier on Wednesday, Didi said the disruption was caused by an underlying system software failure and not a cyberattack, and that its services were fully restored. It also said it would carry out upgrades to avoid a recurrence.

The company's 10 yuan discount offer mixed reactions on Chinese social media, with some users saying they were having issues claiming the coupon while others criticised the coupon's Dec. 2 use-by date. ($1 = 7.1244 yuan)