MEITUAN’S INTERNATIONALISATION OF FOOD AND GROCERY DELIVERY

Wang Xing, the CEO of Meituan, held a strategy meeting with his top managers, the first in five years. Wang proposed three focus areas for growth:

▶️ GROCERY RETAIL: Self-operated fresh food retail (Meituan Xiaoxiang) and platform retail (Meituan Shangou).

▶️ TECHNOLOGY: Using AI to build a large-scale, full-category, in-depth and ecologically healthy local business system.

▶️ INTERNATIONALISATION: Overseas expansion of food delivery and other businesses, including Keeta and drones.

Let's unpack that last one ...

Keeta, Meituan’s international food delivery brand, has already launched in Hong Kong (2023) and Saudi Arabia (Sep 2024). In Hong Kong, it introduced one-person portions to the market, thereby increasing average order frequency per month from 2-3 to 5-10. It also offered couriers higher pay than other players and has more than 300,000 daily orders.

In Saudi Arabia, where Keeta mainly employs Indian and Pakistani couriers, it is expected to reduce food delivery fees through collective delivery, order scale effect and compression of intermediate links.

In 2025, Keeta aims to have a leading position in all core cities in Saudi Arabia, and it is planning a launch in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain in the next three years. In the fourth quarter of 2024, Meituan Waimai began to organize internal presentations to encourage employees to switch to Keeta to support overseas business.

Besides food, Keeta also plans to deliver goods through instant retail. Meituan Shangou (flash delivery) and Meituan Xiaoxiang (self-operated front-end warehouses) have already sent teams to Saudi Arabia, and these services will be launched in the first half of 2025. Dingdong Maicai, another front-end warehouse grocery delivery platform in China, shelved plans for expansion into Saudi Arabia after hearing about Meituan’s plans.

Keeta is also considering Japan, South Korea, North Africa, and Latin America, using successful strategies in China (such as quickly seizing market share through differentiated subsidies, investments, and more stable delivery). Local food delivery players still operate like Meituan did 10 years ago in terms of attracting new customers, order aggregation and delivery, and offline business development. They are now copying some of Keeta’s strategies.

If the price is reasonable, Meituan will also consider directly acquiring overseas platforms in markets it hasn’t entered yet.

Source: Latepost

Picture: Keeta