Meituan Reports $28.2B Revenue and $2.45B Net Loss in 2021

Chinese food delivery giant Meituan announced on Friday its audited consolidated results for the year ended December 31, 2021.

The company’s revenues increased by 56% to 179.1 billion yuan ($28.2 billion) in 2021 from 114.8 billion yuan in 2020. Despite sporadic COVID-19 outbreaks, all food delivery and in-store, hotel and travel businesses recovered from the effects of the pandemic and achieved strong revenue growth on a year-over-year basis. However, both adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net profit experienced year-over-year decreases falling to negative 9.7 billion yuan for EBITDA and an adjusted net loss of 15.6 billion yuan in 2021.

Meituan had cash and cash equivalents of 32.5 billion yuan and short-term treasury investments of 84.3 billion yuan as of December 31, 2021, compared to the balances of 17.1 billion yuan and 44 billion yuan as of December 31, 2020, respectively.

Food Delivery

Meituan’s peak daily order volume exceeded 50 million in August and subsequently reached historic highs again in December. Gross transaction value (GTV) increased by 43.6% year over year to 702.1 billion yuan, and revenue increased by 45.3% year over year to 96.3 billion yuan in 2021. Operating profits increased to 6.2 billion yuan in 2021 from 2.8 billion yuan in 2020, while operating margins increased to 6.4% from 4.3%.

For the twelve months ended December 31, 2021, around 5.27 million food delivery couriers worked on behalf of Meituan‘s platform. On the merchant side of things, in May of last year the company rolled out a new fee structure that splits thr fee charged from merchants into a technology service fee, which is the commission revenue, and a food delivery services fee. The new fee structure promotes a more transparent pricing and clearer cost structure, and benefits the majority of the small- and medium-sized merchants on the platform.

SEE ALSO: Chinese Food Delivery Platforms Ele.me and Meituan Reduce Commission for Pandemic-Affected Merchants

In-store, Hotel & Travel

Revenues from in-store, hotel & travel businesses increased by 53.1% year over year to 32.5 billion yuan in 2021. Operating profits from the in-store, hotel & travel businesses increased to 14.1 billion yuan in 2021, up from 8.2 billion yuan in 2020, while operating margins increased to 43.3% from 38.5%.

New Initiatives and Others

Meituan continued to expand its investments into other new initiatives, especially in retail goods as it upgraded to a “Retail + Technology” strategy. Revenues from the new initiatives and other segments increased by 84.4% year over year to 50.3 billion yuan in 2021, while the operating loss expanded to 38.4 billion yuan in 2021 from 10.9 billion yuan in 2020.

The tri-level logistics network system established by Meituan Select, a system that fulfills next-day pick-up orders, now covers the majority of neighborhoods and villages in 30 provinces across China. The launch of a fresh produce direct sourcing program has also enabled Meituan to effectively match production and demand through both a centralized and demand-based procurement process, in turn generating additional revenue for farmers.

Meituan Instashopping delivered another stellar growth number in 2021, with thr highest daily order volume exceeding 6.3 million in December 2021. Leveraging the location-based e-commerce platform and on-demand delivery networks, Meituan offered consumers a diverse selection of retail goods and convenient on-demand delivery services, and successfully converted a large number of high-quality food delivery users into Meituan Instashopping users.

Meituan Founder and CEO Wang Xing expressed his expectations for this year: “In 2022, we will focus on high-quality growth, build fundamental capabilities for long-term development, support merchants in dealing with difficult times, bring more convenience to people’s lives, create new forms of digital life and employment opportunities, and better fulfill our social responsibilities based on the overall dual circulation economic development goals, truly creating more value overall for society.”