HONG KONG, March 29, 2026, 18:12 HKT
- Meituan posted fourth-quarter revenue of 92.1 billion yuan, but ended up with a net loss of 15.1 billion yuan. For the entire year, revenue rose 8.1%. Still, the company recorded a net loss of 23.35 billion yuan for 2025. 1
- Meituan CEO Wang Xing expects a sharper reduction in per-order food delivery losses for the first quarter. CMB International called the company’s main business “bottoming out.” 2
- Hong Kong shares closed at HK$85.90 on Friday, wrapping up a turbulent week after Beijing signaled it wants to cool the heated food-delivery price battle. 3
Meituan opened the week with its Hong Kong-listed stock on trader watch, after the company revealed a 23.35 billion yuan loss for 2025—subsidy-driven, and hard to ignore. The shares settled Friday at HK$85.90, a 0.9% dip. For much of last week, investors chewed over the earnings blow, even as talk of a possible regulatory easing started to trickle out. 1
Timing couldn’t have been sharper: just as Beijing and state outlets flagged a crackdown on the food-delivery price war, the numbers landed. Reuters reports state media called for an end to the bruising, profit-sapping fight for market share, and China’s market regulator backed them up by sharing the article—traders took that as a cue. That alone pushed Meituan, Alibaba, and JD.com up. 4
Meituan’s fourth-quarter revenue edged up 4.1%, coming in at 92.1 billion yuan. But the numbers on the bottom line told a different story: an operating loss of 16.07 billion yuan, alongside a net loss of 15.14 billion yuan. A year earlier, those had both been profits. 1
Meituan’s mainstay—its core local commerce unit—took the biggest hit. The segment’s revenue edged down 1.1% to 64.8 billion yuan in the quarter. Operating profit evaporated, turning into a 10.05 billion yuan loss after posting a 12.9 billion yuan profit a year ago. Even so, group revenue for the year rose 8.1% to 364.85 billion yuan. But the company flipped from a 35.81 billion yuan profit in 2024 to a 23.35 billion yuan loss in 2025. 1
Rising costs hit hard. In the filing, cost of revenue for 2025 surged 22.2% to 253.8 billion yuan. Selling and marketing expenses climbed to 102.9 billion yuan, fueled by larger courier incentives, better benefits, heavier promotions, and a bigger push abroad. 1
Management’s message: time to move on. Wang Xing told investors that Meituan “firmly oppose[s] involution”—the Chinese term for cutthroat competition eating into profits—and indicated the company plans to cooperate with regulators. He also said Meituan hopes for “more meaningful” quarter-on-quarter improvement on food-delivery order losses in Q1. 2
Some analysts are beginning to shift their stance, though not without reservations. On March 27, Saiyi He and her team at CMB International pointed out that Meituan’s core local-commerce business appeared to be “bottoming out,” hinting the “most intense phase of competition” in local services could be over. Still, the group cut their 2026 revenue forecast by 3%, pointing to Meituan’s focus on what they called higher-quality growth. 5
Even so, risks remain on the table. CMB International analysts flagged that a “meaningful earnings recovery may still take time to materialize.” Competition isn’t letting up, and those bigger-picture macro headwinds aren’t fading quickly. Margins could get squeezed again if subsidy fights flare up or overseas ventures keep draining cash. 5
Investors have a lot to weigh. Revenue keeps rising, with Beijing now stepping in to rein in the expensive price war that’s tangled up Alibaba and JD.com. Still, Meituan hasn’t managed to prove it can protect its core business or stem the losses. 4
