On March 24, Meituan released the fourth quarter and full year results of 2022. The company’s various businesses continued to achieve steady growth, with annual revenue of 220 billion yuan (RMB, the same below), an increase of 23% year-on-year, and adjusted net profit of 2.80 billion yuan.
This year, Meituan deepened its "retail + technology" strategy and continued to increase investment in scientific research in key areas. The annual R & D expenditure increased by 24% year-on-year to 20.70 billion yuan, a record high.
At the same time, Meituan’s annual instant delivery orders increased by 14% year-on-year to 17.70 billion orders, of which the peak daily order volume of catering takeaway orders exceeded 60 million orders. The stickiness between users and the platform further increased, and the average annual transaction number of users reached 40.8, an increase of 14% year-on-year.
"In 2022, we will continue to provide hundreds of millions of consumers with assured goods and convenient services, and help millions of merchants use digital means to expand their online operations, which will drive more consumption and create more jobs," said Wang Xing, CEO of Meituan. "In the process of promoting the digital upgrading of life services and retail industries through technological innovation, we will continue to pay attention to the common interests and long-term development of platform participants such as merchants and riders, firmly fulfill platform responsibilities, increase investment in science and technology, continue to help the real economy, and make more contributions to the high-quality growth of China’s economy."
Enabling entities and core local businesses to thrive
As a technology retail enterprise, Meituan is continuing to leverage the advantages of rich application scenarios to fully meet user consumption needs through instant retail and high-quality online and offline supply. In 2022, Meituan’s core local business operating profit reached 29.50 billion yuan, an increase of 57% year-on-year.
Among them, the takeaway business insists on pursuing high-quality development, and consumers’ user stickiness has continued to increase in the past few quarters. Driven by this, the peak daily order volume of Meituan catering takeaway in 2022 exceeded 60 million orders.
The instant retail format using digital technology has further stimulated the potential of local consumption. In addition to food and beverage takeaway, the demand for instant retail such as medicines, flowers, daily groceries, branded cosmetics and mobile phones has grown rapidly. In the fourth quarter, the peak daily order volume of Meituan flash sale exceeded 11 million. Instant retail has also driven more local entities to embrace digital business methods. In 2022, there were nearly 300,000 convenience stores and small supermarkets related to instant retail on the Meituan platform, more than twice the number in 2019. The sales volume of merchants increased by more than 400% compared with 2019, and the variety of goods was three times that of 2019.
In terms of store-to-store business, Meituan has a rich and diverse range of life service categories and product matrices, as well as a strong consumer mind. To further stimulate the vitality of local merchants, Meituan has specially launched measures such as merchant traffic support and joint marketing programs, such as providing tailor-made tools for "time-honored" merchants to help them expand customer acquisition channels. In 2022, Meituan’s annual active merchants in stores maintained healthy growth, of which small store merchants increased by nearly 500,000 compared with 2021.
Meituan also gave full play to its supply-side advantages, launching a series of themed activities around key consumption nodes such as New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, and Spring Festival, to help local catering entities produce more "food". Taking Changsha as an example, from November 18 to November 30, 2022, Meituan joined tens of thousands of catering merchants to launch special activities to promote consumption and special night snacks, and selected more than 20,000 high-quality winter special packages, which stimulated the consumption vitality of the "night economy". Data show that the number of stores providing night catering services on the platform increased by 20% year-on-year in November.
In terms of new business, the efficiency of commodity retail business has been greatly improved. In 2022, the revenue rose to 59.20 billion yuan, and the quarterly operating loss narrowed by 32% year-on-year to 6.40 billion yuan. Meituan market and Meituan Preferred have ensured the stable supply of users’ daily necessities during the special period, and have also played a positive role in promoting the digital transformation of the agricultural industry.
Take multiple measures to jointly promote consumption recovery
In addition to mining user requests and providing a series of accurate and high-quality marketing activities to greatly boost consumer confidence, Meituan also undertook more than 80 government consumption coupon projects in dozens of provinces and cities such as Beijing, Tianjin, Hubei, and Shenzhen in 2022, and assisted the local government in issuing nearly 1 billion yuan of electronic consumption coupons, covering consumers’ all-round needs for "food, housing, travel, shopping and entertainment". Meituan data shows that among many consumption scenarios, the leverage effect of consumption coupons on in-store catering is the most obvious. During the event, the average daily transaction volume of participating merchants increased by 55% compared with the week before the event, and the average daily transaction volume of small and medium-sized merchants in Tianjin, Wuhan, Enshi, Yinchuan, Foshan and other cities increased by more than 100%.
Instant retail, characterized by minute-to-minute delivery, is a new trend in the retail industry, which makes technological innovation represented by drones expected to become the infrastructure for new business models in modern society. By the end of 2022, Meituan drone has been launched in Shenzhen and Shanghai, with routes covering 18 communities and office buildings, serving nearly 20,000 households. In the two years of normal trial operation, Meituan drone has completed more than 120,000 single delivery tasks, of which more than 100,000 orders will be completed in 2022.
"Meituan’s ability to effectively cope with external challenges and maintain growth momentum in 2022 is due to the strong resilience of the Chinese economy, the industry experience we have accumulated over the years, and the strong execution ability to adjust business strategies in a timely manner," said Chen Shaohui, Meituan CFO. "In the future, we will continue to consolidate the core capabilities of our main business and focus on new areas with growth and long-term returns. At the same time, we will insist on technological innovation to help the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy, so as to help everyone eat better and live better."
