The In Focus | Meituan premium newsletter ran from Nov. 20, 2019, to April 29, 2020. Subscribers get full access to this newsletter, and others, in TechNode’s archives.

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Original introduction: After getting its start as a group-buying site nearly a decade ago, Meituan-Dianping has transformed itself into a lifestyle super-app that offers everything from on-demand food delivery to group buys and ticket booking. Locked in a cutthroat battle with other ambitious tech companies, Meituan managed to grow its core food-delivery business into the largest in China and establish market dominance by extending its tentacles into a myriad of other online-to-offline (O2O) services.

However, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. After the company went public in September last year [2018], its performance in the following months was widely viewed as disappointing.

In recent months, Meituan seemed to have climbed out of its rut after reconsidering its core business strategy and winding down some of its other business units. In the second half of this year, the Hong Kong-listed company became China tech investors’ new darling and saw its shares rally to a historical high.

How did Meituan go from being a Groupon knock-off to a lifestyle super-app? Who is Wang Xing, the company’s charismatic founder? Now that it has managed to dominate the food-delivery market, what’s next for Meituan? Join us to find out more.

Enjoy!

Emma and Nicole

Nov. 20, 2019

There are no food delivery winners

Various parties involved in Meituan’s food delivery ecosystem are pointing fingers at one another over missing profits. It doesn’t look good.