Introducing Meituan

In this article, we introduce Meituan (Chinese: 美团)(HKEX: 3690), one of China's largest food delivery platforms (along with Alibaba's Ele.me, Chinese: 饿了么) that also has a hotel booking platform and a variety of other businesses including community e-commerce (社区团购), on-demand deliveries, ride-sharing, bike-sharing, power-bank-sharing, and micro-lending. The company describes itself as a "tech-driven retail company" with a strategic focus on "retail + technology" as part of a mission to "help people eat better, live better".

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Corporate History

Meituan was founded in 2010 as a group discount website which allowed buyers to group together to purchase discount vouchers from merchants similarly to Groupon in the US.

In 2013, Meituan launched its first food delivery business across multiple cities in China.

In 2015, Meituan merged with Dazhong Dianping (大众点评), a platform for consumer restaurant reviews similar to Yelp, thus becoming Meituan Dianping (美团点评). The same year, the company also launched a hotel booking functionality similar to Ctrip (携程旅行) and Expedia.

In 2018, Meituan Dianping went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX: 3690).

Meituan Dianping was officially renamed to simply Meituan (美团) in 2020.

Segment Overview

Meituan has three main business segments: (1) Food Delivery and Services, (2) In-Store, Hotel, and Travel, and (3) New Initiatives.

Food Delivery Services

The Food Delivery Services segment includes nationwide food ordering and on-demand delivery services (e.g. grocery and medicine deliveries) offered via Meituan's platform. Revenues are generated from platform and food delivery service fees as well as online marketing service fees for merchants.

In-Store, Hotel, and Travel

This segment refers to the offering of vouchers, coupons, tickets, and accommodation reservations by merchants on the Meituan platform. Revenues are derived from commission fees and online marketing service fees.

New Initiatives and Others

New Initiatives and Others include Meituan Instashopping (美团闪购), community e-commerce program Meituan Select (美团优选), Meituan Grocery (美团买菜), a business-to-business food distribution network (快驴), as well as other services including ride-sharing, bike-sharing, power-bank-sharing, a micro-lending business, and a restaurant management system (RMS) initiative.

Meituan Instashopping (美团闪购) is an on-demand delivery service where consumers can order flowers, medicine, and various items from local supermarkets and convenience stores.

Meituan Select (美团优选) is a community group buy program active in 30 out of China's 34 provincial-level administrative regions as of the end of 2021.

Meituan Grocery (美团买菜) is an on-demand grocery delivery service run in-house by Meituan (i.e. with the company's own warehouse and logistics system) with coverage in China's four tier one cities.

Meituan's business-to-business food distribution service (快驴) allows small businesses to bulk purchase raw food ingredients and other essential restaurant items such as food containers, napkins, and etc. Management does not provide details of the company's additional smaller initiatives.

Segment Restructuring

In April 2022, management changed Meituan's reporting structure to comprise of two segments: Core Local Commerce and New Initiatives. The Core Local Commerce segment includes what was previously the Food Delivery Services and In-Store, Hotel, and Travel segments, as well as Meituan Instashopping. The New Initiatives segment includes all of Meituan's businesses housed under the previous New Initiatives and Others segment except for Meituan Instashopping.

Financial Overview

We next move on to a financial overview of Meituan, starting with company-level financial metrics, followed by a segment analysis and summary of key business statistics.

Company-Level Financials

#1: Meituan's Total Revenue Grew At A CAGR of 39.5% During 2017-2021

Meituan's total revenue grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 39.5% from RMB33.9 billion in 2017 to RMB179.1 billion in 2021. Although the company's gross profit increased continually throughout this time period, Meituan's operating profit and net income exhibited greater variability with a particularly large net loss in 2018 driven by significant negative fair value changes of convertible redeemable preferred shares, as well as sizable operating and net losses in 2021 due to higher selling and marketing expenses, relatively low fair value changes of other financial investments at fair value through profit or loss compared with in 2019 and 2020, and recognition of net other losses compared with high net other gains recorded in 2019 and 2020.

Data Sources: Meituan Annual Reports

#2: Meituan's Profit Margins Are Still Unstable and Declining or Negative

Meituan's profit margins are still relatively unstable with a gross profit margin that declined over the past three consecutive years from a level of 33.1% in 2019 to 23.7% in 2021. The company's operating profit margin is negative and fluctuated in the -11% to -17% range in all years except for 2019 and 2020, which had positive margins as a result of high fair value changes of other financial investments at fair value through profit or loss and recorded net other gains. Considering only the core operating expenses (i.e. selling and marketing, research and development, and general and administrative expenses), Meituan would have a negative operating income and operating profit margin in all years except 2019, during which gross profit exceeded these expenses by a small margin

(Note: Meituan's net other gains/losses are driven by investments, subsidies, and the company's foreign exchange positions)

Data Sources: Meituan Annual Reports

#3: Meituan's Revenues Are Largely Driven By Commission Fees

Management provides a breakdown of the company's revenue by revenue type, comprising of Commission, Online Marketing Services, and Other Services and Sales. Commission is generated via technical service fees charged to users of Meituan's platforms, while Online Marketing Services refer to marketing fees charged to merchants in return for fulfilling various marketing services on Meituan's platforms. Other Services and Sales include the sales of goods through Meituan's business-to-business food distribution services (快驴) and Meituan Grocery (美团买菜), other services such as community e-commerce program Meituan Select (美团优选) and services housed under the New Initiatives and Others category, in addition to interest income.

In 2021, Meituan implemented a new fee structure which splits the previous fee charged to merchants into a technology service (i.e. commission) fee and a food delivery services fee. In line with this new fee structure, the same year, management also adopted a more granular breakdown approach for revenue type which adds Food Delivery Services as a revenue type. Food Delivery Services as a revenue type refers to fees charged in relation to on-demand food delivery services fulfilled by Meituan.

Using the 2021 breakdown approach, 30.3% of Meituan's revenues are generated in the form of Food Delivery Services fees, 29.5% are generated by Commission fees, 16.2% arise through Online Marketing Services, while the remaining 24.0% are generated through Other Services and Sales. As a whole, the share of Commission-based revenue is declining while the revenue contribution from Other Services and Sales is rising.

Data Sources: Meituan Annual Reports

#4: Meituan's Cash Flows Have Yet To Stabilize

Meituan's cash flows reflect that of a relatively young and growing company with unstable net operating cash flows and significant net investing outflows due to high capital expenditure for expansion.

Data Sources: Meituan Annual Reports

Segment Analysis

In our segment analysis, we use Meituan's pre-2022 operating segment structure, which comprises of (1) Food Delivery Services, (2) In-Store, Hotel, and Travel, and (3) New Initiatives and Others.

#1: Food Delivery Services Account For More Than Half of Meituan's Revenues, While New Initiatives Contribute A Growing Share

Breaking down Meituan's total revenue by segment, we see that Food Delivery Services account for over 50% of Meituan's total revenue in each year, although the segment's share of total revenue declined from 2017 to 2021 due to the rapid increase in revenue contribution from New Initiatives and Others, which rose from 6% to 28% of total revenue over the same time period. The relative contribution of the In-Store, Hotel, and Travel segment also declined from 32% to 18% during this time.

In 2021, Food Delivery Services comprised 53.8% of Meituan's total revenue, the In-Store, Hotel, and Travel segment contributed to 18.1% of total revenue, while New Initiatives and Others accounted for 28.1% of total revenue.

Data Sources: Meituan Annual Reports

#2: In-Store, Hotel, And Travel Contributes The Least To Revenue But Is The Most Profitable Segment Due To A Higher Operating Profit Margin

Although In-Store, Hotel, and Travel contributed the least to Meituan's total revenue in 2020 and 2021, the segment contributed the most to operating profit over the past three years (management only started releasing a breakdown of operating profit by segment starting in 2019).

Data Sources: Meituan Annual Reports

Note: Unallocated Items include share-based compensation expenses, the amortization of intangible assets resulting from acquisitions, fair value changes in other financial investments at fair value through profit/loss, and net other gains/losses.

Comparing the operating profit margin of all three segments, we see that In-Store, Hotel, and Travel has significantly higher margins in the 37.7% to 43.3% range, while Food Delivery Services, which contributes the most to revenue each year, only has an operating margin ranging from 2.6% to 6.4%, and New Initiatives and Others, which contributes a substantially growing proportion of revenue each year, reached an all time low negative margin of -76.5% in 2021.

Data Sources: Meituan Annual Reports (click image to enlarge)

#3: Meituan's Operating Segments Are Driven By Different Revenue Drivers

Management also provides a breakdown of each segment's revenue by revenue type. In 2021, 56.3% of the Food Delivery Services segment's revenue is generated by fees charged for Food Delivery Services, 29.6% of the segment's revenue are generated via Commission fees, 11.9% is by Online Marketing Services, while the remaining 2.2% are generated through Other Services and Sales. In contrast, revenue for the In-Store, Hotel, and Travel segment is split roughly half-half between Commission fees and fees from Online Marketing Services, with the former contributing a slightly higher share in preceding years. Lastly, as the name suggests, revenue from the New Initiatives and Others segment is largely dominated by Other Services and Sales.

Data Sources: Meituan Annual Reports (click image to enlarge)

Business Statistics

Lastly, we turn to look at some of Meituan's key business statistics.

#1: Meituan Had 690.5 Million Transacting Users and 8.8 Million Active Merchants In 2021

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