Meituan Leads in China’s Food Delivery Market, Followed by Ele.me and Baidu

Trustdata released a new mobile Internet report on July 31, unveiling a 6-3-1 shape of the food delivery market in China where Meituan Waimai continues to lead with 60 percent of the market share, followed by Ele.me at 36 percent and Baidu Waimai at 3 percent.

According to the Beijing third-party data analytic firm, daily actively users (DAU) of the Tencent-backed Meituan Waimai surpassed that of ele.me by far, while Baidu Waimai has taken the bottom seat in the first half year in 2018.

Meituan Waimai has a wide range of access points, including the Meituan app, Dianping app, Tencent‘s WeChat and Mobile QQ platforms, which all contribute its traffic volume. Its on-demand delivery service has seen an increase in market share from 31.7 percent in 2015 to 59.1 percent in the three months ended March 31, 2018.

Meituan Waimai has been looking to expand its delivery business beyond the food sector, “flash order” is its new online delivery business covering fruits and vegetables, daily essentials, flowers and clothing. Flash order is available 24 hours and aim at completing the delivery in a 30 minutes.

When the online food delivery industry first emerged, Ele.me and Meituan had doled out discounts to attract users. Nowadays, the competition has become more innovation-oriented where service providers are adopting cutting-edge technologies to optimize their businesses.

Earlier last month, Meituan Waimai announced an autonomous delivery open platform, applying driverless technology to real-life food deliveries. The service will pilot this year and be put into large-scale operations in 2019.

Xiaodai, a driverless food delivery vehicle previously released by Meituan Waimai, could choose the best route based on analysis of map data and avoid any visible barriers in rather complicated geography settings. It is also trained to take the elevator to delivered to the customers’ doorstops.