Meituan Looks to Expand E-Commerce Business. It Wants to Rival Alibaba.

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China’s most significant meals shipping and delivery system is wanting to use its mammoth user foundation to broaden into e-commerce and bolster its current forays as a bicycle-share leader and travel intermediary. The moves come even as it remains less than the vise of Beijing’s regulatory grip and its earnings slows.

Hong Kong-stated

Meituan (3690: HK) unveiled its 2021 financial final results this week, demonstrating an ambitious and maturing organization. Analysts continue being combined on the company’s prospective clients, largely due to the fact of a few variables: the unfamiliar potential of Meituan’s new initiatives, China’s clampdown on tech firms, and Covid-19.

While Meituan defeat revenue and earnings anticipations for the fourth quarter of 2021, quantities had been down—for the quarter and for the yr. Earnings took a large hit, falling from a $737 million achieve for all of 2020 to a $3.7 billion loss for 2021. Complete revenues were being up 56% for the yr, but have nevertheless been slowing for 10 months.

“Challenges” were being a recurring topic in the firm’s commentary accompanying its monetary statement. “As we entered 2022, we however face troubles from Covid manage measures and a weakening usage natural environment,” it explained. It also blamed the “macro atmosphere and pure disasters”—all of which are certainly impediments that have sideswiped a range of sectors in China over the previous 12 months.

“We be expecting the company’s earnings to continue being less than force with new polices on food stuff supply commission and resurgence of Covid-19,” LightStream equities analyst Shifara Samsudeen wrote in a observe this 7 days.

Meituan did not respond to requests for remark.

But Meituan also appears to be to be likely headstrong into its new and current ventures. Late previous calendar year, it introduced a change in its total strategic positioning. It was relocating from “Food + Platform” to “Retail + Engineering,” it explained in a assertion. What that mostly intended was that it would continue its profitable leadership status in meals delivery and bike-sharing, but would grow into comprehensive-fledged e-commerce.

Meituan is well positioned for this large endeavor, even if competitiveness is fierce. It already provides a array of 3rd-celebration merchandise from meals to retail objects, and has a escalating logistics community. And by means of its shipping and delivery and bike-share services—which are out there along with a number of other expert services in a solitary do-it-all app—it is currently on a lot more than 100 million phones in China, according to iiMedia Analysis.

Meituan’s e-commerce force will involve growing the solutions it delivers in its shipping system, but also escalating both of those 3rd-bash sellers and its own items. It is developing various spheres inside of its e-commerce vertical that goal distinctive consumer demands. Chinese media even claimed that Meituan was setting up bodily outlets, much like

Alibaba Team Holding’s (BABA) Tmall has done, from which motorists decide on up goods to be sent.

Meituan has also just lately opened an abroad browsing portal for cross-border gross sales, letting Chinese buyers to obtain goods from produced marketplaces like the U.S. That is presently a crowded area, nevertheless, dominated by

Alibaba’s Tmall,

JD.com (JD), and

Pinduoduo (PDD), with

NetEase’s (NTES) Kaola,

Amazon.com (AMZN), and

Suning (002024.China) using smaller parts, in accordance to Analysys.

Even brief-movie apps like Douyin (China’s initial version of TikTok) and

Kuaishou Technology (1024.Hong Kong) have started observing sizeable earnings by way of profits of customer products out there by using click throughs. But revenue is slowing for the three massive e-commerce leaders, Alibaba,

JD.com, and Pinduoduo.

On an earnings connect with this 7 days, Meituan went even more than noting that its enormous food items-shipping and delivery user base would give it an edge diving into e-commerce, hinting that its several e-commerce platforms would help drive up its common verticals.

So even though it bleeds income, it continue to has the self esteem of a lot of observers.

“As we believe that it is realistic to keep the businesses in decline, we value the business by revenue. We believe that income will rise by 29% in 2022 and 25% in 2023,” Ming Lu, Chinese equities analyst at Aequitas Exploration, wrote in a notice this week. “We conclude an upside of 20% for the year stop 2022, which indicates a price tag focus on of HK$160 ($20.44).”

As for the slew of new initiatives that are driving losses, Fitch Ratings stated likely ahead it “expects better willpower above financial investment in new organizations that do not yield economic improvement.”

Analysts at Nomura have been far more dour, positing that downside challenges of Meituan stock include things like “intensifying levels of competition from Alibaba in both of those foods shipping and delivery and in-keep consumption verticals, and worse-than-anticipated functionality in the new initiatives” these kinds of as e-commerce.

Though Meituan’s stock fell Thursday, it was nonetheless up just about 15% for the week.