Meituan released its latest Earnings Reports.

The earnings report shows that Meituan achieved a total revenue of 337.6 billion yuan for the entire year of 2024, a year-on-year increase of 22%. Last year's net income was 35.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 158.4%. Last year's fourth quarter revenue was 88.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.1%. The net income for the fourth quarter was 6.22 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 180.7%.

It is worth mentioning that at the earnings conference following the earnings report, Meituan CEO Wang Xing重点 introduced the strategy and progress regarding AI.

“Everyone is very concerned about AI, please allow me to first convey the key message clearly. I am very focused on AI, and our strategy for AI is offensive, not defensive.” Wang Xing stated that the company will continue to explore the application of artificial intelligence in the field of instant delivery.

It has been reported that, in addition to self-development, Meituan has supported the development of some outstanding entrepreneurial companies in the robotics and self-driving industry through strategic investments.

Instant retail becomes Xiong'an New Power Technology, contributing a total of 1.4 billion yuan for delivery personnel's social insurance.

Specifically, Meituan's core local business division's revenue increased by 20.9% year-on-year, reaching 250.2 billion yuan. Among them, delivery service revenue was 98.07 billion yuan, an increase of 19.3% year-on-year; commission revenue was 92.29 billion yuan, an increase of 23.6%; and online marketing services revenue reached 48.84 billion yuan, an increase of 21.3%.

In terms of user and merchant data, Meituan's annual Trade user numbers successfully broke through 0.77 billion in 2024, and the number of annual active merchants also increased to 14.5 million, both setting new historical highs.

In addition to traditional dining delivery services, instant retail is becoming an important focus for Meituan. By the end of 2024, Meituan Flash Purchase has partnered with over 5,600 large chain retailers, 0.41 million local small merchants, and more than 570 brand merchants. The peak daily Order volume for instant delivery reached 98 million on the day of the end of summer.

In terms of in-store services, Meituan's Order volume increased by over 65% year-on-year, with both annual Trade user count and annual active merchant count reaching historic highs.

Recently, multiple Topics surrounding the delivery industry have attracted public attention. After Meituan released its 2024 annual Earnings Reports, the Meituan Research Institute also disclosed the annual rider income situation.

Data shows that in 2024, the monthly average income of high-frequency riders across Meituan nationwide ranged from 6,650 yuan to 9,344 yuan. For example, the monthly average income of skilled riders in the Le Pao team can reach up to 11,547 yuan in top-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.

Additionally, according to the latest survey data from the Meituan Research Institute, there were an average of 3.36 million single riders per month throughout the year.

The Meituan Research Institute also revealed more information about rider social insurance. For work-related injury insurance, from July 2022 to now, Meituan has paid occupational injury protection premiums for all riders in seven pilot provinces and cities, with a cumulative investment of 1.4 billion yuan. Under the guidance of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, Meituan will gradually advance and cover all riders in all provinces and cities in the future.

At the Earnings Conference, Meituan executives stated that they expect to conduct broader pilot tests in selected cities in the second quarter of this year and gradually roll out the plan nationwide this year.

Meituan's AI strategy is offensive.

Earnings Reports show that by the end of 2024, Meituan's automated delivery vehicles and Drones have completed a total of 4.91 million and 450,000 orders respectively. In addition to the upcoming delivery routes in Hong Kong, Meituan's Drones have also started commercial operation in Dubai recently.

In response, Meituan stated in its Earnings Reports that it will increase investment in AI, Drone delivery, automated delivery vehicles, and other frontier Technology-related applications.

Regarding the widely discussed Meituan AI strategy among investors, Meituan CEO Wang Xing spoke for over 13 minutes at last night's Earnings Conference, clearly stating that Meituan's strategic positioning in the AI field is offensive rather than defensive. He emphasized that Meituan will continue to act as a technological 'bridge' connecting offline entities and the online world.

Wang Xing further elaborated on Meituan's three-layer strategy in the AI field: first, AI at work, aimed at improving employee work efficiency and daily Business operation efficiency through AI technology; second, AI in products, creating entirely new AI native products that will transform existing B2B and B2C products and services, better serving consumers, businesses, and riders; third, building an internal large language model, Meituan will continue to increase investment to enhance its self-developed base model capabilities, providing strong support for AI applications.

In terms of AI infrastructure, Wang Xing stated that Meituan places great importance on training and application deployment, having achieved preliminary results, and will further accelerate exploration efforts. He revealed that Meituan's intelligent customer service Agent, based on its self-developed large model, has achieved a 20% increase in efficiency and a 7.5 percentage points rise in customer satisfaction.

In addition, Meituan is developing a brand new AI native product. Wang Xing revealed that it is expected to launch an AI assistant covering all Meituan services within this year, allowing everyone to have a free little life secretary.

In terms of computing resources, Wang Xing pointed out that GPU resource supply has been a key focus for Meituan over the past year. Meituan has invested billions of dollars in GPU resource construction and plans to further expand investment in critical AI infrastructure by 2025.

Wang Xing also revealed that the self-developed large model LongCat's comprehensive evaluation is comparable to the level of the top tier in China, and Meituan has also connected with other mainstream models in the market, allowing its internal product development teams to explore AI products and services more freely. Among them, the usage ratio of the self-developed large model LongCat API has increased from 10% at the beginning of last year to 68% now.

This year will see increased investment in overseas markets.

Earnings Reports show that Meituan's new business segment revenue in 2024 increased by 25.1% year-on-year to 87.3 billion yuan, with the operating loss narrowing to 7.3 billion yuan and the operating loss rate improving to 8.3%.

Meituan is accelerating its exploration of overseas markets, and since the launch in Riyadh last October, Keeta has further expanded to all major cities in Saudi Arabia, with users and order volumes rapidly increasing.

Regarding the overseas expansion plan of Keeta, Wang Xing stated that the markets in the Middle East outside Saudi Arabia are still under research, and there are no specific business plans to share at this time. He clarified that at the current stage, Meituan's overseas business will focus on the dining delivery sector, and pointed out that high-frequency traffic is crucial for business growth.

Wang Xing said that Meituan has already proven a clear path to profitability in the dining delivery business, as high-frequency delivery can bring a large customer base. Although in the Middle Eastern market, the customer acquisition cost for high-frequency delivery business is higher than other low-frequency categories, these users are significant for driving the development of other businesses.

In addition, Wang Xing revealed that Meituan plans to increase its resource investment in overseas markets by 2025 to achieve better development. He stated that the 30-minute on-demand delivery network established in the dining delivery business will enable Keeta to expand into more food categories or other categories, and build an instant delivery habit among users, further enhancing demand.

Editor/jayden