The food delivery war results in a net loss of 23.35 billion by 2025. Wang Xing of Meituan: Not competing for short-term wins or losses, focusing on the long-term and AI integration | Live coverage of the earnings conference.

March 27 (Reporter Xu Cihao) - Meituan announced its 2025 earnings after the close of Hong Kong stocks on the 26th.

The financial report shows that Meituan achieved a revenue of 364.85 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 8.1%. Affected by the delivery war in 2025, Meituan’s performance turned from profit to loss, with a net loss of 23.35 billion yuan for the year, compared to a profit of 35.81 billion yuan in the same period last year.

At today’s earnings conference, Meituan’s CEO Wang Xing stated that recent investments by competitors may affect Meituan’s short-term profitability. “But we are more focused on long-term strategy. The current competitive landscape has changed significantly, with industry participants having different focuses. Our priority has always been the sustainable long-term development of the industry, rather than winning short-term victories at any cost.”

Core local business turned from profit to loss last year.

As Meituan’s cornerstone business, the core local business segment faced severe challenges last year.

The financial report shows that the core local business segment achieved a revenue of 260.826 billion yuan in 2025, a slight increase of 4.23% compared to 250.247 billion yuan in 2024.

In terms of revenue structure, the performance of various businesses is distinctly different. Among them, delivery service revenue declined, reaching 96.067 billion yuan for the year, a decrease of 1.998 billion yuan compared to the same period in 2024; revenue from commissions contributed 99.234 billion yuan, an increase of 7.53% compared to 92.289 billion yuan in 2024; online marketing services contributed revenue of 14.063 billion yuan, an increase of 27.17% compared to 11.058 billion yuan in 2024.

It’s noteworthy that the profitability of the core local business has seen a significant reversal, with an operating loss of 6.9 billion yuan in 2025, a loss rate of 2.6%, while achieving an operating profit of 52.4 billion yuan in the same period in 2024. Meituan explained in the report that the loss mainly resulted from a decrease in gross profit and increased transaction user incentives and promotional advertising expenses due to fierce market competition and efforts to enhance user stickiness and consolidate market position.

“It is expected that the average loss per order for food delivery in the first quarter will improve compared to the last quarter of last year.” At today’s earnings call, Meituan executives disclosed that the trend of reducing losses in food delivery will continue in the first quarter.

Additionally, regarding concerns from investors about regulatory investigations into the delivery market and the competitive environment, Meituan CEO Wang Xing stated at today’s earnings conference that regulatory authorities firmly oppose irrational competition and hope to establish a healthy and orderly market. Meituan will actively cooperate with regulatory investigations while refocusing resources on high-quality orders to strive to defend its market share.

Wang Xing clarified the core strategy for 2026: first, focus on enhancing core competitiveness, expanding high-quality categories, and ensuring fast and reliable delivery services; second, promote high-quality growth while maintaining a leading position and improving overall operational efficiency.

Moreover, in February this year, Meituan announced the acquisition of the Chinese business of Dingdong Maicai. In this regard, Meituan CFO Chen Shaohui explained at today’s earnings conference that Dingdong Maicai has strong capabilities in East China, and this acquisition will significantly enhance Meituan’s service coverage and quality in that region.

Chen Shaohui emphasized in the earnings call that grocery retail is one of Meituan’s long-term strategic focuses. The model of Xidang Supermarket has shown a clear path to profitability and its own advantages. In the future, Meituan plans to expand this model to more cities and regions to further enhance its retail business layout and core competitiveness.

Keeta expects to achieve its first profit in the Saudi market by the end of the year.

Meituan’s new business is a highlight of this financial report. The new business, including Xidang Supermarket and the overseas food brand Keeta, achieved a revenue of 104.029 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 19% compared to 83.887 billion yuan in the same period of 2024.

The revenue from this segment is divided into commissions, online marketing services, and other services and sales (including interest income). Among them, the revenue from commissions in the new business was 6.243 billion yuan, an increase of 104.52% compared to 3.052 billion yuan in 2024; revenue from online marketing services was 458 million yuan, an increase of 13.37% compared to 404 million yuan in the same period of 2024; in addition, revenue from online marketing services and other services and sales (including interest income) was 97.327 billion yuan, an increase of 16.02% compared to 83.887 billion yuan in 2024.

The operating loss for this segment increased from 7.3 billion yuan in 2024 to 10.1 billion yuan in 2025, and the operating loss rate increased from 8.3% by 1.4% to 9.7%. In this regard, Meituan explained in the report that it was mainly due to overseas investments.

It is noteworthy that Meituan’s delivery platform Keeta is accelerating its global expansion. After steadily increasing its market share in Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia, it has successively entered Middle Eastern markets such as Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, and will start pilot operations in Brazil in October.

It is worth mentioning that Meituan’s overseas journey began in May 2023, launching the new delivery brand Keeta starting from Hong Kong, subsequently entering the Saudi Arabian and Brazilian markets.

However, this year, Meituan’s internationalization is facing two major challenges. On one hand, there are disturbances in the Middle East situation. Meituan has clearly stated to the media that it will closely monitor local developments, prioritize the safety of riders and other parties, and will limit or suspend services in specific areas if necessary, which also means that its expansion pace in the Middle East will be forced to slow down.

On the other hand, the expansion in the Brazilian market has also been obstructed. According to local media reports in Brazil, Keeta originally planned to launch in Rio de Janeiro in early March 2026 but was forced to indefinitely postpone due to high local market barriers.

Meituan CEO Wang Xing revealed at today’s earnings conference that Keeta is expected to achieve its first profit in the Saudi Arabian market in the fourth quarter of this year, much earlier than in Hong Kong.

“Currently, Keeta has achieved a balance between revenue and expenses in some cities in Saudi Arabia, and other cities are also following suit.” Wang Xing previously stated at the 2025 Q3 earnings conference that Keeta achieved profitability in Hong Kong in October 2025, taking 29 months from launch to profit.

As for the Brazilian market, Wang Xing revealed at the earnings conference that the business is currently focused on São Paulo rather than a nationwide rollout. “Keeta is prioritizing exploring the business model in São Paulo before proceeding with broader expansion,” Wang Xing said at the earnings conference.

Seizing the AI entry point for future local living demands.

According to the financial report, R&D expenditure in 2025 was 26 billion yuan, an increase of 23.5% compared to 21 billion yuan in 2024. Its proportion of total revenue increased by 0.9 percentage points from 6.2% to 7.1%. In this regard, Meituan explained in the report that it was mainly due to increased investment in AI.

It is noteworthy that Meituan’s progress in the AI field in 2025 far exceeded market expectations. Especially since the second half of last year, Meituan has successively released the LongCat-Flash-Chat mixed expert model and the LongCat-Flash-Thinking efficient reasoning model. At the end of October, it launched the LongCat-Video video generation model, creating a family of multimodal models covering text, images, audio, and video in just two months.

Additionally, Meituan has launched consumer-facing AI agents “Xiao Mei” and the AI browser Tabbit, as well as “Ask Xiao Tuan,” further improving its AI application matrix.

At the earnings conference following the financial report release, Meituan CEO Wang Xing elaborated on the AI strategy that investors are concerned about. He emphasized that in the wave of the AI revolution, offense is the only reasonable strategy. Meituan will not blindly pursue becoming a “token factory,” but will view AI as a strategic opportunity, focusing on local services as its core business and using AI technology to improve, strengthen, or even completely transform existing service models.

Wang Xing revealed that since the beginning of 2023, Meituan has been continuously laying out its AI strategy for more than three years, making large-scale investments in capital expenditure and AI talent. Excluding enterprises with cloud computing businesses, Meituan’s investment in AI is likely among the top in domestic companies. Currently, Meituan is simultaneously deepening its research and development of the LongCat large model while also collaborating with top third-party large models in the industry, with the core goal of achieving precise understanding of the real physical world.

Wang Xing further stated that the core of the AI “super entry point” is accurately understanding user needs and efficiently executing tasks, which is far more complex than ordinary “chatbots.” The local living field has complex scenarios, scattered merchant information, insufficient data digitization, and extremely high requirements for fulfillment and delivery management, which are the shortcomings of general AI and the advantages of Meituan. In the future, Meituan will continue to optimize model capabilities, deepen the integration of “Xiao Tuan” with the Meituan APP, enhance AI search and execution capabilities, and strive to make the Meituan APP the preferred platform for users to meet local living demands, upgraded to a leading AI-driven application, seizing the AI entry point for future local living demands.