off-the-wire

UPDATE 1-Chinese food delivery giant Meituan posts 21.4% rise in Q4 revenue

Kitco Media
By Reuters
Published:
Updated:
Reuters
(Adds revenue from core local commerce, other details) SHANGHAI, March 24 (Reuters) - Chinese food delivery giant Meituan posted a bigger-than-expected 21.4% rise in quarterly revenue on Friday as it fended off competition from powerful rivals such as Alibaba-backed Ele.me. Meituan - whose so-called super app provides services ranging from bike-sharing, movie ticketing, mapping, to food delivery and restaurant bookings - said its total revenue rose to 60.13 billion yuan ($8.76 billion) for the three months ended December, from 49.52 billion yuan a year earlier.


Analysts on average expected a revenue of 57.88 billion yuan, data from Refinitiv shows. Its net loss for the fourth quarter narrowed to 1.08 billion yuan, from a loss of 5.34 billion yuan a year earlier. Meituan was hit hard by COVID-19 curbs last year but it swung to a profit in the third quarter as it cut back investment on new initiatives.


Its fourth-quarter revenue from core local commerce, which includes food delivery and non-food delivery service Meituan Instashopping, rose 17.4% to 43.47 billion yuan. Operating profit for the segment jumped 56.8% on a year-over-year basis to 29.5 billion yuan. Quarterly revenue from Meituan's in-store, hotel booking, and travel sector businesses declined due to the impact of COVID curbs in China. The firm described the year-on-year decline as being "to a similar extent as that of the second quarter". ($1 = 6.8641 Chinese yuan) (Reporting by Casey Hall; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

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