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Yahoo makes final China exit amid tightened regulation in world’s biggest internet market
- The US internet company discontinued access to its few remaining online services in mainland China on Monday
- Yahoo, which launched its Chinese internet operations in 1999, closed its last remaining physical presence in the country in March 2015
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US internet company Yahoo stopped all its remaining online services in mainland China on Monday, marking its final retreat from the country, weeks after Microsoft Corp’s LinkedIn announced its exit from the world’s second-largest economy because of greater compliance requirements.
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The Sunnyvale, California-based firm said its “suite of services will no longer be accessible” in the country, according to a statement posted on its website over the weekend. It added that “Yahoo products and services remain unaffected in all other global locations”, without elaborating on the reasons behind its latest exit from the mainland.
The withdrawal leaves the US presence in China’s online market largely limited to Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon in terms of operating systems and hardware within the country as well as marketing and cloud services needed by Chinese companies outside the country.
Yahoo, which launched its domestic internet operations in 1999, closed its last remaining physical presence in the country in March 2015, when its research and development operation in Beijing was shut down. Its news and community services in the country were terminated in September 2013, a month after its local email service was discontinued.
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China now has nearly 1 billion internet users
China now has nearly 1 billion internet users
Yahoo’s popularity in online search waned in the 2000s, as Google increased its global market share and Baidu became the dominant search engine provider in China. Yahoo is operated by namesake firm Yahoo!, which is 90 per cent owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Management and 10 per cent by Verizon Communications.
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