Meituan keeps tight grip on 70% of food delivery market in China, report says

Meituan, the Chinese on-demand delivery giant, is maintaining a steady hold on its 70 per cent market share in domestic food delivery, despite intensifying competition from JD.com and Alibaba Group Holding’s Ele.me, as daily orders reached 90 million in recent days, according to a report by Chinese tech media outlet Leiphone.com, citing internal data.

Meituan did not comment on the report. If confirmed, it would show the challenges Meituan’s rivals face in changing consumer habits, after a price war broke out in the instant delivery market amid sluggish consumer spending in the world’s second-largest economy.

Daily orders on JD.com’s rival service have reached 25 million, the company announced on June 18. It launched a food delivery service in February, expanding its instant delivery offering, which aims to bring items to customers’ doors typically within an hour. Alibaba said last month that the combined daily orders on Ele.me and its Taobao Instant Commerce reached 40 million. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

Leiphone reported the numbers based on “exclusively obtained” Meituan data. The delivery giant, founded by entrepreneur Wang Xing in 2010, has not publicly disclosed operational data.

Since entering the food delivery market, JD.com’s billionaire founder Richard Liu Qiangdong has been aggressively recruiting delivery crew, even donning a delivery uniform himself and sharing hotpot with couriers.

South China Morning Post