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)