Duolingo Shares Tumble After Removal From China App Stores

(Bloomberg) -- Duolingo Inc. fell 8% in intraday trading Friday after the company said its language-learning service had been removed from some app stores in China.

The move signals that Beijing’s crackdown on for-profit education may be extending to companies outside of the country. Duolingo, based in Pittsburgh, offers one of the world’s most popular free apps for studying languages.

In late July, Chinese authorities outlined a broad set of reforms for private education companies, seeking to decrease workloads for students and overhaul a sector it said had been “hijacked by capital.” The crackdowns have mainly targeted local companies, and it’s not clear whether Duolingo is part of that same initiative.

“We are working to address the issue and are hopeful that the app will be reinstated in the near term,” Duolingo said in an emailed statement Thursday. “In the meanwhile, existing users in China can continue to use the app as they always do.”

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