Meituan (美团) Moves the Conversation to Delivery as Rivals Eat Into Its Lucrative In‑store Business

The pivot: distraction or defense?

Meituan (美团) is publicly hammering the message “stop the subsidy war” even as its most profitable division quietly erodes. After releasing a soured annual report — RMB 3649亿元 in revenue and a net loss of RMB 234亿元 — CEO Wang Xing (王兴) stressed long‑term sustainability and warned against “low‑quality competition.” Short, disciplined statements. Big stakes. Is Meituan trying to frame itself as the industry’s responsible steward while deflecting attention from an accelerating market share loss in its in‑store (restaurant and travel) business?

Market numbers and where the pressure is coming from

It has been reported that Douyin (抖音), the local‑services arm of ByteDance (字节跳动), grew local GTV nearly 60% in 2025 to roughly RMB 8000亿元 and is closing fast on Meituan’s decade‑old in‑store scale of about RMB 1万亿元. It has also been reported that Meituan’s share of China’s delivery market slid from roughly 70% in 2024 to just above 50% by end‑2025, amid a subsidy arms race involving Alibaba (阿里巴巴) — including Ele.me (饿了么) and Taobao Flash Sale — and JD.com (京东). Analysts say cumulative subsidies from the major players reached around RMB 800–1000亿元, a dynamic that drew a front‑page editorial in the state‑backed Economic Daily calling for an end to the “delivery war,” after which Meituan’s stock spiked about 13% intraday.

Strategy and risks: lobbying the narrative while the profit center erodes

Observers say Meituan’s public campaign — “oppose involution, oppose low‑quality competition” — is as much a regulatory gambit as corporate rhetoric: pressure the government to curb subsidy spending and, in doing so, blunt ByteDance’s cash‑rich push. It has been reported that some investors view this as a deliberate ploy to shift investor focus to the low‑margin, high‑visibility delivery fight while trying to preserve the high‑margin in‑store business that once delivered >40% profit margins. If regulators step in, Meituan could buy time. If they don’t, or if Douyin keeps burning cash, Meituan risks losing the very profit pool that underwrites its broader local‑services empire.