China's largest ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing is suspending its Hitch services nationwide, the company said in a statement on Sunday, a day after police said a ride-sharing passenger in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou was raped and killed by a driver.
Didi Chuxing said it was sorry that the carpool service would be suspended from August 27 due to "disappointing mistakes" while the company reevaluates the product's business model.
The suspected murder of a 20-year-old woman, who Wenzhou police identified only with the surname Zhao, is the latest in a series of violent crimes that have fuelled safety concerns about the service.
Zhao got into a Hitch carpool vehicle at 1 pm (0500 GMT) on Friday and sent a message to a friend at around 2 pm seeking help before losing contact, according to a local police statement.
A 27-year-old driver named Zhong was detained at about 4 am on Saturday and confessed to raping and killing the passenger, the local police statement said, adding that the victim's body had been recovered and an investigation was continuing.
Did said on Sunday that the suspect had no prior criminal record, had provided authentic documentation and passed a facial recognition test before starting work.
But the company said on Saturday there was a prior complaint made against the driver on Thursday by a passenger who alleged the driver took them to a remote place and then followed the passenger after she got out of the car.
"The incident shows the many deficiencies with our customer service processes, especially the failure to act swiftly on the previous passenger's complaint and the cumbersome and rigid process of information sharing with the police," the company said in the statement on Sunday.
The Hitch carpool service has run over 1 billion trips in the past three years, the company said. Didi is the biggest ride-sharing firm globally by number of trips.