The number of trading users continues to rise to new highs, and the number of active merchants has grown rapidly. In 21Q3, the number of trading users reached 668 million, YOY +40.1%, an absolute increase of 39.1 million over the previous month. Compared with other Internet platforms, the number of new users added was leading for three consecutive quarters. At the same time, the frequency of user transactions increased, and the average number of transactions per user per year was 34.4, up 28.4% from 26.8 in the same period last year. The increase in users mainly came from Meituan Preferred Choice, Meituan Takeaway, etc. On the business side, the number of active businesses increased by 27.7% in the same year, reaching 8.3 million, an increase of 600,000 over the previous year.
Despite adverse effects of epidemic control and consumption, Q3 takeout was in line with expectations, and growth is expected to slow in Q4. Q3 order volume increased 24.9% to 4.01 billion orders, 43.62 million daily orders, and the customer unit price rose slightly to 49.1 yuan, in line with expectations. The monetization rate of 13.4% was basically the same as the previous quarter. Revenue increased 28% to 26.48 billion yuan, and OPM fell to 3.3% from 3.7% in the same period last year, which may be related to the quarterly marketing strategy. Combined with the above factors, Q3 operating profit increased 14% to 876 million yuan. Due to the decline in overall consumption combined with epidemic control and increasing delivery difficulties, it is expected that the takeout business will have an adverse impact in the short term. The growth rate will slow down, and we are still optimistic about takeout growth logic in the long term.
In-store and wine tourism business: Under macro-unfavorable circumstances, comprehensive in-store growth showed strong resilience, and growth slightly exceeded expectations. Performance revenue and profit increased steadily. Q3 revenue rose 33.1% year on year to 8.621 billion yuan, operating profit increased 35.8% year on year to 3.774 billion yuan, and OPM exceeded expectations by 43.9%. The performance of in-store and other in-store businesses grew rapidly. The 2-year CAGR of GTV, the other in-store business, reached 38%, and the growth rate of wine travel Q3 slowed due to the pandemic. It is expected that Q4 will continue this trend.
New business: Upgrading “retail+technology” from the “food+platform” strategy, the retail business is still the focus of investment, and losses have expanded as the business expands. Q3 New business revenue increased 66.7% to 13.72 billion yuan, mainly driven by growth in retail and ride-sharing businesses; operating losses reached 10.91 billion yuan, and the operating loss rate increased to -79.5%. Among the new businesses, flash shopping and grocery shopping businesses have grown brilliantly. In the future, community group buying will focus on improving the efficiency of various nodes in the industrial value chain, and will continue to increase investment in technology and automation equipment.
Financial forecasting and investment advice
We forecast the company's earnings per share for 21-23 to -3.27/-0.62/2656 yuan (the original forecast for 21-23 was -3.66/-0.25/2.97), using segmented valuations to give the takeaway business 6x PS, with an estimated revenue of 124.5 billion CNY in 22; giving the store and wine tourism 31x PE, which is expected to achieve a profit of 18.1 billion CNY in 22; the new business only takes into account the valuation of community group purchases and gives 0.6x P/GMV. The estimated 22GMV is 141.3 billion, and the company's reasonable valuation is 1701.9 billion HKD, with a target price of 277 HKD, maintains a “buy” rating.
Risk warning policy control, increased market competition, adverse effects of the epidemic and consumption, new business growth fell short of expectations