Chinese food delivery giant Meituan posts 21.4% rise in Q4 revenue

SHANGHAI :Chinese food delivery giant Meituan posted a bigger-than-expected 21.4 per cent rise in quarterly revenue on Friday as it fended off competition from powerful rivals such as Alibaba-backed Ele.me.

Meituan - whose so-called super app provides services ranging from bike-sharing, movie ticketing, mapping, to food delivery and restaurant bookings - said its total revenue rose to 60.13 billion yuan ($8.76 billion) for the three months ended December, from 49.52 billion yuan a year earlier.

Analysts on average expected a revenue of 57.88 billion yuan, data from Refinitiv shows.

Its net loss for the fourth quarter narrowed to 1.08 billion yuan, from a loss of 5.34 billion yuan a year earlier.

Meituan was hit hard by COVID-19 curbs last year but it swung to a profit in the third quarter as it cut back investment on new initiatives.

Its fourth-quarter revenue from core local commerce, which includes food delivery and non-food delivery service Meituan Instashopping, rose 17.4 per cent to 43.47 billion yuan.

Operating profit for the segment jumped 56.8 per cent on a year-over-year basis to 29.5 billion yuan.

Quarterly revenue from Meituan's in-store, hotel booking, and travel sector businesses declined due to the impact of COVID curbs in China. The firm described the year-on-year decline as being "to a similar extent as that of the second quarter".

($1 = 6.8641 Chinese yuan)