Meituan

Prosus NV has started selling down its stake in Meituan, a holding valued at more than $4 billion, after the Chinese food-delivery app announced plans to start expanding in some of Prosus’ territories such as Brazil, people familiar with the matter said.

Competition escalated further after Alibaba's Ele.me announced subsidies last month. There's been growing discussion about “RMB 0 purchase” promotions...

Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post. The SAMR said those companies must adhere to e-commerce, anti-unfair competition, and food safety laws, and...

China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) on Friday summoned major online food delivery platforms – Alibaba Group Holding’s Ele.me, Meituan, and JD.com – urging them to engage in “rational” competition amid a prolonged price war. The meeting aimed to “further regulate promotion behaviours, encourage rational competition, and foster a healthy ecosystem and win-win situation for consumers, merchants, delivery riders, and platform operators”, the regulator said in an...

Asked about Meituan's thoughts on its rivals' subsidy programmes including Alibaba's pledge, Wang said it was “definitely an irrational competition”...

A Meituan executive said the company had no choice but to join the latest round of what he called “irrational competition” against rivals JD.com and Alibaba Group Holding in China’s instant delivery sector, even though the blizzard of discounts being offered to woo buyers had become disconnected from business fundamentals. “We didn’t want to take part in [the price war], as we don’t think it makes sense,” Wang Puzhong, head of Beijing-based Meituan’s core local commerce business, said in an...

Alibaba Group Holding will roll out a programme called “Super Saturdays” over the next 100 days to lure more consumers to its platform, while escalating a price war against Meituan and JD.com in the mainland’s on-demand delivery services market. Under Alibaba’s instant commerce brand Taobao Shangou, “Super Saturdays” would offer consumers up to 188 yuan (US$26) in subsidies for the purchase and delivery of low-cost goods such as milk tea and breakfast meals, according to a report by state-owned...

Alibaba Group Holding tied its own record of 80 million on-demand deliveries on Saturday, the e-commerce giant reported on Monday, as it wages an...

JD.com has pledged more than 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) under its ambitious “Double Hundred Plan” to support so-called benchmark brands across various categories, further heating up China’s on-demand delivery sector, as industry-wide daily orders reached a new high of more than 200 million. The Beijing-based e-commerce giant’s latest initiative seeks to elevate sales of select brands beyond one million items on its platform via measures that include increased traffic, marketing incentives...

Alibaba Group Holding is seeing a rapid acceleration in the volume of on-demand delivery transactions, the latest sign of growing rivalry with Meituan and JD.com in China’s instant e-commerce market. Combined daily orders on Taobao Instant Commerce – the company’s latest push into on-demand delivery – and food delivery app Ele.me, reached 80 million, Taobao said on its official WeChat account on Monday. Daily active users on Taobao Instant Commerce surpassed 200 million. Alibaba owns the South...

Instant delivery of orders on Taobao is performed by Ele.me, Alibaba's food delivery arm.

Meituan said daily transaction volume on its dominant on-demand delivery reached an all-time high since its inception in 2010, briefly crashing its platform as online purchases surged amid a fresh round of price war among China’s e-commerce leaders. Daily orders of food and retail goods for its instant delivery service surpassed 120 million on Saturday, according to the company, with food orders accounting for 100 million or 83 per cent of them. Meituan’s delivery services suffered a technical...

Alibaba Group Holding’s instant commerce service announced on Wednesday a substantial subsidy programme totalling 50 billion yuan (US$7 billion) over the next 12 months for both consumers and merchants, intensifying the fierce competition in China’s on-demand delivery sector, where JD.com and Meituan are also major players. Consumers using Taobao’s in-app Shangou service, the instant commerce business of Alibaba, will enjoy significant incentives, including cash vouchers, free purchase coupons,...

JD Logistics has kicked off recruitment of full-time meal delivery riders, as its parent – e-commerce giant JD.com – intensifies efforts to compete with Meituan and Alibaba Group Holding in the lucrative Chinese food delivery market. Hong Kong-listed JD Logistics said on Tuesday it had started hiring full-time riders for JD.com’s food delivery business, in a move aimed at broadening the subsidiary’s service offerings, according to a filing with the stock exchange. Beijing-based JD.com launched...

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...

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com is extending its deep-seated rivalry with Meituan to Saudi Arabia, launching a self-operated courier service in the country as it extends its footprint in the Middle East. On Wednesday, JD.com’s logistics arm JD Logistics announced the launch of JoyExpress, a business-to-consumer express delivery service that covers most of the 13 provinces in the Middle Eastern country, according to a statement. JoyExpress provides expedited same-day and next-day delivery...