Meituan defended its delivery throne with a ¥23.4B loss

Meituan had run China's food-delivery market for years when JD entered with subsidies in 2025 and the war reignited, peaking from July. Meituan defended the way incumbents defend: matching subsidies, raising user incentives and promotional spending — even as CEO Wang Xing called the competition low-quality 'involution' that creates no value and cannot last. The instant-retail machine ran flat out: daily orders peaked above 150 million in July at an average delivery time of 34 minutes, and an upgraded merchant support plan added ¥2.8 billion for restaurants.

The Q3 report on November 28, 2025 priced the defense: revenue up 2% to ¥95.5 billion, net loss ¥18.6 billion, adjusted net loss ¥16 billion — the largest single-quarter loss since the 2018 IPO, against the previous record of ¥9.99 billion in Q3 2021. The core local-commerce segment, long the profit engine, swung to a ¥14.1 billion operating loss on ¥67.4 billion of revenue. Wang Xing said Q3 marked the peak of the losses, though large ones could continue.

The defense bought the share it was meant to buy: over 60% of delivery GTV, dominance kept in high-value orders — more than two-thirds of orders over ¥15 and over 70% of orders over ¥30 — and order volume standing level with Taobao Shangou. The full-year ledger on March 26, 2026: revenue ¥364.9 billion, up 8%; net loss ¥23.4 billion; core local commerce ¥6.9 billion in the red; new businesses crossing ¥104 billion. HSBC estimated the combined losses of Alibaba, Meituan and JD at ¥173 billion from Q2 2025 to Q1 2026 — the industry burned over ¥170 billion of subsidies in a single year.