Author | Liu Baodan From performance to market confidence, Meituan is walking out of a three-year low point, but Wang Xing is not stopping there - he has even bigger plans. Going overseas has become a must for Chinese companies. Meituan, which has been warming up for 8 years, has finally made up its mind to put going overseas on the agenda. Recently, Meituan began recruiting senior engineers for international silver enterprise direct connection. After the model was successful in the Hong Kong market, Meituan officially kicked off its overseas expansion, accelerated recruitment and put the first stop of the overseas expansion in Saudi Arabia in the Middle East. Going overseas is a critical turning point, which means that after more than ten years of capacity accumulation, Meituan has to export its local life capabilities to the world, which is as significant as the replication of TikTok by ByteDance. In the wave of Internet companies going overseas, Meituan went overseas later because local life patterns are more important than social, e-commerce and other industries. However, Wang Xing must make this move. Against the background of intensified domestic competition and the shrinking of community group buying, he must find a new growth story. On his entrepreneurial journey, Wang Xing is still determined to create a new business legend in this global adventure. A must-have question. Meituan has fought a beautiful takeaway battle in Hong Kong. On May 6, Measurable AI, a market research firm, released the latest data showing that by March 2024, according to the number of orders, KeeTa, the takeaway business of Meituan in Hong Kong, has a market share of 44%, rising to the largest takeaway platform in Hong Kong. However, Hong Kong is only a stopover for Meituan's overseas expansion, and Meituan has set its real meaning of going overseas in Saudi Arabia. Wall Street news learned that Meituan has been recruiting people around the direction of going overseas in the past two months. The positions include engineers, overseas human resources and operation experts, international payment and transaction product managers, mainly responsible for payments, employee management and related products in overseas markets. More importantly, the recruitment of local talents. More than a month ago, Meituan posted relevant recruitment information on LinkedIn and the Middle East recruitment platform Baye.com, with Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, as the place of work. From the city selection, Meituan did not choose the United States with a larger market space, nor did it choose Southeast Asia where culture and food are more similar, but chose Saudi Arabia. It can be seen that Meituan's overseas expansion strategy still has a heavy experimental component and is more cautious. Wang Xing is not fighting an unprepared battle. For this overseas expansion, Meituan has been planning for many years. As early as 2016, Wang Xing began to consider the issue of going overseas and visited Silicon Valley, Berlin, Israel, Jakarta and other places. In 2017, Meituan officially laid out overseas accommodation business, first connecting hotels in nearly 100 countries overseas to the Meituan application. At that time, the domestic and foreign takeaway wars were in full swing, and with Meituan's listing in Hong Kong in 2018, Wang Xing's overseas strategy was forced to be shelved. Since then, Meituan has also made a series of international investments, including Swiggy in India, Gojek in Indonesia, and Opay in Nigeria, involving food, taxis, payments and other fields, to prepare for going overseas. Along with the frequent news reports of Meituan's victory in Hong Kong, Meituan's overseas plan was finally brought to an unprecedented strategic height in 2024, and Wang Xing once again rushed to the forefront. In February, Meituan put the home business group, the in-store business group and other businesses into the core local business sector, and appointed Wang Putong as CEO, while Wang Xing personally took charge of overseas business, which ensured the landing of the overseas expansion strategy in the organizational structure. In fact, before the confirmation of the overseas expansion strategy, Wang Xing personally visited the Middle East last May and met with members of the Saudi royal family, laying the foundation for Meituan's layout in Saudi Arabia.

In today's weather is good. Today's weather is good.

Seen as the second half of the e-commerce market, instant retail has always been the target that major internet companies are trying to conquer. Although the development has not been smooth, it still has a strong appeal. Now, jd.com has decided to make another move.

On November 1st, Wall Street News learned that jd.com's Seven Fresh supermarket and front warehouse have completed integration. Earlier, Seven Fresh by jd.com had opened a new front warehouse in Beijing, with plans to open warehouses in Shanghai as well. During the same period, the Seven Fresh by jd.com app declared a "honestly cheap price, not afraid of comparison" slogan, sounding the alarm for the instant retail price war.

All of these actions point to one direction, jd.com is vigorously expanding its self-operated retail business, intensifying its efforts in the instant retail competition.

As a format comparable to Hema, Seven Fresh by jd.com was established in 2017, with jd.com positioning it as a self-operated supermarket serving consumers within a radius of three kilometers from the store. In 2020, Seven Fresh by jd.com began to launch its own brands, with the number of stores reaching 19 that year. In the early stages, Seven Fresh by jd.com was more focused on exploring business models.

The pandemic has led to an increased demand for instant delivery of fresh products. In 2021, Seven Fresh by jd.com began to accelerate its expansion, focusing on the Bejing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the Greater Bay Area. According to the initial store opening plan, the total number of Seven Fresh by jd.com stores was expected to reach 47 by the end of 2021 and exceed 70 by the end of 2022. However, in 2022, the new retail industry started to shrink on a large scale, leading Seven Fresh by jd.com to shift from expansion to contraction.

Last year, JD.com welcomed management and organizational adjustments. In June 2023, JD.com integrated JD Fresh, Jingxi Pinpin, and pre-positioning warehouse businesses into the Innovation Retail Department, headed by Yan Xiaobing, a veteran with a background in 3C appliances and deep knowledge of e-commerce battles, laying the groundwork for the later relaunch of JD Fresh.

In fact, JD.com quietly restarted the pre-positioning warehouse business last year, and "Jingxi Pinpin" was also renamed as "JD Pinpin," showing signs of expansion. Neither of these two businesses made a big splash, paving the way for JD Fresh to take the spotlight.

In September this year, JD Fresh Supermarket Shanghai Huiju Store opened for trial business, marking the first store of JD Fresh Supermarket in Shanghai, focusing on high-quality goods at low prices. Relying on supply chain efficiency and industry chain capabilities, JD.com launched a "price breakthrough" on the opening day, with some commodity prices reaching the industry's lowest price.

According to Wall Street news, while entering Shanghai, JD Fresh also began operating its first pre-positioning warehouse in Beijing, with more pre-positioning warehouses already in planning and construction, and there are also warehouse opening plans in Shanghai, with the possibility of accelerating warehouse openings.

"The pre-positioning warehouse strategy is to lay out around the stores to improve the delivery efficiency of consumers within an 8-kilometer radius of the store." An anonymous insider told Wall Street news that JD Fresh covers consumers up to 8 kilometers away, with 30-minute delivery within 2 kilometers, 60 minutes within 3-5 kilometers, and two hours beyond 5 kilometers, affecting user experience, which the pre-positioning warehouse can solve.

The competition in the e-commerce market is becoming increasingly fierce, and instant retail is considered to have broad market prospects. The latest report from the Market Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce shows that as of 2023, the domestic instant delivery market size is 341 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 24.8%. It is expected that by 2027, the instant e-commerce market size will exceed 5 trillion yuan.

This is also the core driving force that attracts JD.com to further invest in instant retail. Although not developing at the pace of Hema, JD.com is also determined in its new retail efforts.

For JD.com, after many years of cultivating self-operated e-commerce, it has accumulated a large amount of supply chain resources that can empower JD Fresh. At the same time, JD.com also has high efficiency in delivery.

In September, jd.com acquired 87.4813 million shares of common stock and 1.875 million shares of ADS (American depositary shares) held by walmart's subsidiary Dada Nexus, increasing jd.com's stake in Dada to 63.2%. In May, jd.com integrated JDX and JD Daojia into JD Seconds to provide the fastest delivery experience in 9 minutes for instant shopping.

The challenges are also evident, as the instant retail track is becoming increasingly crowded. In the second quarter, HEMA opened more than 680 front warehouses; after Hou Yi retired, HEMA started a new round of expansion and recently reactivated the front warehouses. Faced with strong competitors, jd.com is under significant competitive pressure.

Now, jd.com is starting a new battle from this starting point, which is bound to be a difficult battle.

jd.com has taken the initiative to introduce "penetration pricing", now it remains to be seen whether their competitors will follow suit.