An Apple store in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan Province. Photo: IC

Apple removed thousands of applications from the Apple Store in China on Saturday, according to data recorded by Chinese data platform qimai.cn. 

By 19:00 on Saturday, Apple had removed more than 30,000 applications from its Chinese Apple Store. About 90 percent of the removed applications were gaming apps, most of them free ones.

According to data monitored by qimai.com, the removal peaked at 4:15 am, when Apple took down more than 2,000 applications in one minute. 

An article from qimai.com showed that most of the applications were removed because they were online gaming apps not licensed by the regulators. 

Apple has already sent a warning email to some online game software developers in China, asking them to enter their approval number and supporting documentation, as well as to submit an update to App Review by Friday, the article said. 

A Reuters report said it is not clear why Apple is enforcing the government's regulations so strictly this year. Apple removed more than 2,500 items from its app store over the first week of July, the report noted.

Many netizens commented on China's social media platform Weibo that they support Apple's move to take down unauthorized applications, but some of them also questioned why Apple had delayed implementing the regulator's orders banning unlicensed gaming applications.