Meituan

Zhang Tao founded Meituan Group in 2010, which later merged with Meituan-Dianping in December 2015 and is headquartered in Beijing, China. In September 2020, Meituan-Dianping officially changed its name to Meituan (3690.HK). Meituan creates and operates a platform that offers retail and online group purchasing services. It sells and delivers Chinese food from local restaurants via the internet. It runs a social commerce website that provides online group discounts for movie tickets, groceries, food, restaurants, entertainment, and health and fitness.

From food delivery to travel booking, Meituan has earned the moniker "Amazon of Services" in China by offering a diverse range of services that touch nearly every aspect of the lives of Chinese people. Now, the massive service app is venturing into Amazon-like territory and selling physical goods, putting it in direct competition with local retail behemoths such as Alibaba, JD, and Pinduoduo.

Meituan, which operates on a platform model, already has a foothold in physical goods e-commerce. Meituan is one of the most popular options for on-demand or next-day delivery of fresh produce and groceries. However, this represents only a small portion of China's trillion-dollar online retail market.

Beginning with food and beverages, Meituan now aspires to be a full-service e-commerce platform, selling not only daily services (food deliveries) and groceries but also tangible goods such as consumer electronics, cosmetics, and clothing.

Meituan began offering direct sales services for physical goods in early March 2022. Meituan's pilot shopping review feature, Zhenxiang, was rebranded as Guangguang and formally launched this month with additional social and entertainment elements. Furthermore, the everything app dipped its toe into the hot cross-border shopping sector by incorporating a global retailing section into its main app's e-commerce channel.

Founded: 2010

Headquarters: Beijing, China

Official site: about.meituan.com/en