Meituan Photo: CFP

 
Chinese food delivery company Meituan on Friday reported a 30.6 percent rise in fourth-quarter revenue, making its whole year revenue reaching 179.1 billion yuan ($28.15 billion), a year-on-year increase of 56 percent.

In 2021, transaction amount of Meituan's food-delivery business, accounting for more than half of its revenue, reached 702.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 43.6 percent; the number of transactions reached 14.4 billion, a year-on-year increase of 41.6 percent.

Despite the impact of the pandemic, Meituan still overcame difficulties and strived to provide hundreds of millions of consumers with safe and convenient life services, help merchants use digital means to expand online operations, and help more entrepreneurs and employees achieve stable income, said company CEO Wang Xing in the financial report.

Meituan's services also include restaurant reviews and bike-sharing.

The Tencent-based firm said that over the past year, more than 5.27 million riders earned income through the Meituan platform, and the delivery cost of food-delivery riders will reach about 68.2 billion yuan, an increase of 38.3 percent over the previous year, accounting for 71 percent of takeaway revenue.

Adjusted net loss in the fourth quarter expanded to 3.9 billion yuan, and the net loss for the full year reached 15.6 billion yuan.

Friday's results also showed Meituan's food delivery-related cost, which includes cost on delivery riders, increased by 38.3 percent in the quarter to 68.18 billion yuan. Increased losses mainly come from investment in new initiatives.

Meituan expects its operating loss from new initiatives to narrow in 2022, CEO Wang Xing said on a conference call.

The report also comes as Chinese regulators have been regulating the internet industry in an effort to curb anti-monopoly behaviors, and to encourage entities to participate in competition - through which China could improve economic efficiency.

China's market watchdog in April last year began an antitrust probe into Meituan based on the country's anti-monopoly law. The investigation found it had abused its dominant market position since 2018, forcing vendors to sign exclusive cooperation agreement with it by implementing discriminating rates and postponing vendors' online store openings.

In October last year, Meituan was fined 3.44 billion yuan, or 3 percent of its 2020 domestic revenue, for monopolist practices by China's top market regulator. The company was also ordered to immediately stop illegal activities and give full refund of exclusive cooperation deposit of 1.29 billion yuan to contracted vendors.

Amid new waves of the pandemic, a number of Chinese internet platform companies including Tencent, Meituan and Ele.me have announced measures in recent days to reduce commissions for small and medium-sized merchants, as part of an effort to aid embattled small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Meituan also announced a range of measures including reducing commission fees and capping rates at one yuan for businesses operating in medium- and high-risk areas. These changes are effective from the date a virus-hit region is listed as a medium- or high-risk area until one month after the lockdown is lifted.