Loss of 23.4 billion yuan! After the "Food Delivery War," Meituan releases its earnings report

On March 26, Meituan released its fourth quarter and full-year performance for 2025. In 2025, Meituan achieved revenue of 364.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.1%. Due to industry competition and other factors, Meituan reported a loss of 23.4 billion yuan in 2025, compared to a profit of 35.8 billion yuan in 2024.

The takeaway after the food delivery war

Core local business operating losses

According to Wind data, Meituan’s stock price has dropped over 16% this year. In February, Meituan issued a profit warning, stating that the loss trend is expected to continue into the first quarter of 2026 due to ongoing competitive pressures.

The losses mainly stem from two aspects: first, the core local business has turned from profit to loss. In 2025, Meituan’s core local business segment revenue was 260.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.2%, but operating profit saw a significant decline, resulting in an operating loss of 6.9 billion yuan. Second, there has been an increase in overseas business investments. In 2025, Meituan’s new business segment operating losses expanded to 10.1 billion yuan.

In 2025, Meituan’s adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net profit fell to -13.8 billion yuan and -18.6 billion yuan, respectively. As of December 31, 2025, Meituan held cash and cash equivalents and short-term investment assets of 106.8 billion yuan and 60.1 billion yuan, respectively.

Meituan’s financial report shows that the company’s sales and marketing expenses increased by 60.9% from 64 billion yuan in 2024 to 102.9 billion yuan in 2025, with the percentage of revenue rising by 9.2 percentage points year-on-year to 28.2%. This increase is mainly due to enhanced marketing and promotional efforts, improving brand influence and price competitiveness, and continuously increasing user transaction activity and stickiness to respond to intense industry competition.

Meituan previously stated in an announcement that the company has actively adjusted its business strategy and will continue to implement a series of measures, including further promoting the development and application of AI and unmanned delivery technologies, continuously advancing product and business model innovation, improving efficiency through refined operations, and perfecting the industry ecosystem. These measures will help the company further consolidate its core advantages, better serve users and merchants, and drive long-term growth. Meituan firmly opposes irrational competition and will earn consumer trust through better quality and more complete services.

Increased focus on AI and overseas business

Meituan stated that in 2025, its grocery retail and overseas business achieved strong growth, driving revenue in the new business segment to 104 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19%.

By the end of 2025, Meituan’s “Little Elephant Supermarket” had entered 39 cities nationwide. To further expand its front warehouse business, Meituan announced in February that it had completed the acquisition of 100% equity in Dingdong Maicai’s China business for an initial consideration of approximately $717 million (about 4.98 billion yuan).

In terms of overseas business, Keeta is accelerating its global expansion. Following its presence in Hong Kong, Keeta has completed coverage of key countries in the Middle East and is operating in Brazil. Meituan stated that in the Hong Kong market, Keeta continues to strengthen its market position and achieved positive unit economics (UE) in the fourth quarter of 2025.

However, Meituan’s overseas business faces disruptions from the situation in the Middle East, and there are also obstacles to expansion in the Brazilian market. At a recent management communication meeting, Meituan CEO Wang Xing clarified that internationalization does not mean that all businesses are advancing simultaneously, but rather that resources are concentrated on deepening core areas. He also stated that investments in Brazil should not be rolled out broadly, but rather chosen at suitable locations, forgetting past successes, and refining the model before expanding.

In its financial report, Meituan stated that grocery retail and internationalization have clear strategic value and long-term growth potential and will adhere to a prudent investment principle in actively expanding.

In addition to actively pursuing internationalization, Meituan also emphasized the need to “fully embrace AI.” The financial report mentioned that in 2025, Meituan is committed to promoting AI transformation in the physical world, launching the independent app “Xiao Mei” as a smart life assistant, and providing all users with access to the AI assistant “Xiao Tuan” embedded within the Meituan app. In 2026, it will further integrate its self-developed multimodal LongCat series large language models with open-source model advantages, relying on massive local merchant information and real consumer reviews to create an all-in-one local lifestyle AI assistant.

At the management communication meeting, Wang Xing also mentioned that the impact of AI Agent on him is greater than that of ChatGPT. It is certain that the changes brought by AI will be much greater than those brought by the entire internet.