Meituan Dianping Announces Financial Results for the Three and Six Months Ended June 30, 2019

HONG KONG, Aug. 23, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Meituan Dianping (HKG: 3690) (the "Company" or "Meituan"), China's leading e-commerce platform for services, today announced the unaudited consolidated results of the Company for the three and six months ended June 30, 2019 ("2Q2019" and "1H2019").

FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE HIGHLIGHTS

In the three months ended June 30, 2019:

• Total revenues increased by 50.6% year-over-year to RMB22.7 billion from RMB15.1 billion in the same period of 2018 and increased by 18.4% quarter-over-quarter from RMB19.2 billion in the three months ended March 31, 2019, benefiting from strong revenue growth across all major business segments.
• Total gross profit increased by 179.5% year-over-year to RMB7.9 billion from RMB2.8 billion in the same period of 2018 and increased by 56.6% quarter-over-quarter from RMB5.1 billion in the three months ended March 31, 2019, resulting from growth in our business scale, continuous improvement of our gross margin in food delivery, and narrowing losses in our new businesses.
• Selling and marketing expenses as a percentage of total revenues decreased to 18.3% from 25.7% in the same period of 2018 and 19.3% in the three months ended March 31, 2019, as we further enhanced operating leverage across all of our business segments and optimized branding and marketing spending.
• Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net profit were RMB2.3 billion and RMB1.5 billion, respectively. Following a positive adjusted EBITDA in the three months ended March 31, 2019, we achieved both positive adjusted net profit on a consolidated basis and positive adjusted operating profit^[1] in the food delivery segment in the three months ended June 30, 2019, attributable to our ongoing efforts to improve the operating margin of our core businesses, narrower operating losses in our new initiatives and favorable seasonality.

OPERATING HIGHLIGHTS

In the three months ended June 30, 2019:

• Total Gross Transaction Volume (GTV) on our platform grew by 28.7% to RMB 159.2 billion from RMB 123.7 billion in the same period of 2018.
• Annual Transacting Users on our platform in the last twelve months ended June 30, 2019 grew by 18.4% to 422.6 million from 356.9 million in the last twelve months ended June 30, 2018.
• Average number of transactions per annual Transacting User on our platform increased to 25.5 transactions in the twelve months ended June 30, 2019 from 21.4 transactions in the twelve months ended June 30, 2018.
• Annual Active Merchants on our platform grew by 16.2% to 5.9 million in the twelve months ended June 30, 2019 from 5.1 million in the twelve months ended June 30, 2018.
• Overall monetization rate^[2] increased to 14.3% in the three months ended June 30, 2019 from 12.2% in the same period of 2018.

"In the second quarter of 2019, we achieved both positive adjusted net profit on a consolidated basis and positive adjusted operating profit in the food delivery segment for the first time," said Xing Wang, Chairman and CEO of Meituan. "As an integrated one-stop e-commerce platform for local services in China, we have further enhanced our thriving and self-reinforcing ecosystem by increasing penetration through our strong brand recognition on both the demand and supply sides. Going forward, we will continue to execute our 'Food + Platform' strategy and explore new initiatives to drive long-term growth and create value for both consumers and merchants."

BUSINESS REVIEW AND OUTLOOK

Food Delivery

During the three months ended June 30, 2019, we further strengthened our market-leading position while simultaneously improving the financial performance of our food delivery business. Our food delivery business sustained its strong growth momentum and achieved positive adjusted operating profit for the first time. GTV of our food delivery business increased by 36.5% to RMB93.1 billion in the three months ended June 30, 2019 from RMB68.2 billion in the same period of 2018. The number of food delivery orders increased by 34.6% to 2.1 billion in the three months ended June 30, 2019 from 1.5 billion in the same period of 2018. The average value per order of our food delivery business improved by 1.4% year-over-year. Monetization rate of our food delivery business increased to 13.8% from 13.1% year-over-year. As a result, revenue from our food delivery business increased by 44.2% year-over-year to RMB 12.8 billion in the three months ended June 30, 2019 from RMB8.9 billion in the same period of 2018. Gross profit from our food delivery business increased by 102.8% to RMB2.9 billion in the three months ended June 30, 2019 from RMB 1.4 billion in the same period of 2018, while the gross margin expanded to 22.3% from 15.8%.

Our food delivery business achieved positive adjusted operating profit in the three months ended June 30, 2019 mainly due to favorable seasonality and improved economy of scale. The second quarter is usually the best season for food delivery business in terms of profitability, attributable to the sufficient delivery capacity and the favorable weather condition across the country, which help to minimize the amount of seasonal incentives paid to delivery riders. In addition, our food delivery business has strong economies of scale. During the three months ended June 30, 2019, our business scale continued to grow and daily average order volume surpassed 22.9 million. As the number of transactions on our platform increased, order density also increased, and so the probability of grouping more orders together in one trip improved, which allowed us to further reduce our average delivery cost per order. Furthermore, as we continue to scale up, our AI-powered intelligence order dispatching system was able to collect more data to optimize our advanced routing algorithms and improve our delivery efficiency. These factors have together allowed us to further improve delivery efficiency and better control delivery cost per order, thereby meaningfully improving the gross margin of the food delivery segment on both a quarter-over-quarter and a year-over-year basis.

Meanwhile, we continued to leverage our in-depth understanding of food delivery merchants to develop innovative online marketing products, helping food delivery merchants to enhance their exposure to potential consumers and improve their marketing efficiency. In turn, our online marketing services have been adopted by more food delivery merchants, which gradually improved monetization rate of our food delivery business on a year-over-year basis.

Furthermore, our Food Delivery Membership Program, which was launched in the second half of 2018, continued to take effect. Through the Food Delivery Membership Program, we offer monthly membership subscribers certain exclusive benefits, such as sizable discounts to coupons that are valid for one month. The Food Delivery Membership Program helped us to further enhance the stickiness of our high-frequency users and increase the average purchase frequency of our monthly membership subscribers. In June 2019, we also launched a joint membership program with Tencent Video, and we plan to explore cooperative opportunities and partnerships with more ecosystem partners in the future to further enrich our membership benefits.

In-store, hotel & travel

During the three months ended June 30, 2019, we continued to strengthen the market leadership of our in-store, hotel & travel businesses, which demonstrated further strong monetization potential. GTV of our in-store, hotel & travel businesses grew by 20.7% to RMB51.3 billion in the three months ended June 30, 2019 from RMB42.5 billion in the same period of 2018, and the monetization rate increased to 10.2% from 8.6%. Revenues from our in-store, hotel & travel businesses increased by 42.8% to RMB5.2 billion in the three months ended June 30, 2019 from RMB3.7 billion in the same period of 2018. Gross profit from our in-store, hotel & travel businesses increased to RMB4.7 billion in the three months ended June 30, 2019 from RMB3.3 billion in the same period of 2018, while the gross margin slightly declined to 88.8% from 90.8%, primarily attributable to the increases in depreciation of property, plant and equipment, and bandwidth and server custody fees due to a database improvement project and the increase in online traffic costs to support online marketing revenue growth.

We continued to see robust revenue growth in this segment, mainly attributable to increasing revenue from our online marketing services. In the three months ended June 30, 2019, the number of active marketing merchants in this segment grew by more than 50% year-over-year, and the average revenue per active marketing merchant continued to grow steadily.

Meanwhile, we continued to enhance product offering and launched promotional campaigns for our in-store, hotel & travel businesses to drive the growth of our transaction-based services. For example, we launched the June 18 Marketing Festival in the second quarter to enable local service merchants to increase their brand exposure and acquire online traffic. During the six-day June 18 Marketing Festival, transacting users in the medical aesthetic category contributed approximately RMB670 million GTV to the platform.

In the three months ended June 30, 2019, we also expanded our Must Lists from the "Must-Eat List" to include the "Must-Shop List" for top shopping malls, the "Must-Visit List" for top tourist destinations and the "Must-Stay List" for top hotels and resorts, to enhance our brand awareness and influence among consumers and merchants across different service categories. Must Lists were created based on authentic consumer feedback, aiming to provide consumers reliable guidance for local services. 171 shopping malls were selected for our "Must-Shop List," 578 tourist attractions for our "Must-Visit List", and 876 hotels and resorts for our "Must-Stay List." All of our recommended merchants enjoyed substantial improvement in consumer traffic and engagement in the three months ended June 30, 2019. Our Must Lists have allowed our recommended merchants to generate higher sales, enhance brand influence, and improve their operations and product offering based on authentic and dynamic consumer reviews. The success of our Must Lists further demonstrated our leadership as a comprehensive local search platform that helps consumers to discover and explore local life across a wide range of categories, including food, living, travel, shopping and entertainment.

As an important category in our in-store, hotel & travel businesses, we further strengthened the leading position of our hotel booking business in the three months ended June 30, 2019. Domestic room nights consumed increased by 28.9% to 94.0 million in the three months ended June 30, 2019 from 72.9 million in the same period of 2018, and the average daily rate per room night experienced a steady year-over-year increase. Furthermore, we launched the "Hotel+X" campaign in April 2019 to stimulate the growth of our high-end hotel booking business and help high-end hotels to promote their non-lodging services, such as restaurants, wedding venues, spa and gyms, thereby further substantiating their revenue streams. As a result, the contribution from high-end hotels further increased year-over-year in the three months ended June 30, 2019.

New initiatives and others

Revenues from the new initiatives and others segment increased by 85.1% to RMB4.6 billion in the three months ended June 30, 2019 from RMB2.5 billion in the same period of 2018. Gross profit of the new initiatives and others segment was 421.1 million in the three months ended June 30, 2019, turning from negative to positive. Gross margin was 9.1% in the three months ended June 30, 2019, improving from negative 76.4% in the same period of 2018.

• Bike sharing: Operating losses for the three months ended June 30, 2019 narrowed significantly from that for the three months ended March 31, 2019, mainly attributable to the significant reduction in depreciation as some bikes reached the end of their useful lives during the three months ended June 30, 2019 and will no longer result in any depreciation expenses, while new bikes have not all been put in place to replace them. Moreover, we continued to improve our pricing and started to moderately increase the charge per ride and the monthly subscription fee in several cities.
• Car-hailing: By June 30, 2019, we had rolled out the new aggregated model in a total of 42 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing and Chengdu. We believe that adding the car-hailing services to our Meituan app will help us to further improve transaction frequency and the stickiness of our users.
• Restaurant management system: Our focus remains on optimizing products and increasing the coverage of high-quality merchants to lay a better foundation for future monetization. In the three months ended June 30, 2019, the number of high-quality merchants continued to grow year-over-year.
• Grocery retail: We continued our prudent exploration to better capture the opportunities in this space, especially in fresh food retail, and to penetrate into other food consumption scenarios, such as home cooking. We have made progress in Beijing and Shanghai for our self-operated model, which was launched in January 2019 and is known as Meituan Grocery, and recently expanded the business to Wuhan.

Other than the above-mentioned, there was no material change from the information published in the report and accounts for the financial year ended December 31, 2018.

For the full announcement of Meituan 2019 second quarter and first half results, please visit: http://meituan.todayir.com/attachment/2019082317480126273592448_en.pdf

About Meituan Dianping

Meituan Dianping (HKG: 3690) (the "Company" or "Meituan") is China's leading e-commerce platform for services. With the mission of "We help people eat better, live better," the Company's platform uses technology to connect consumers and merchants. Service offerings on the platform address people's daily needs for food, and extend further to broad lifestyle and travel services. Meituan is the world's leading on-demand food delivery service provider and China's leading e-commerce platform for in-store dining services. Meituan helps consumers discover merchant information, make informed decisions, complete online and offline transactions and enjoy on-demand delivery. The Company currently owns several household brands in China, including Meituan, China's leading online marketplace for services, Dianping, China's leading online destination for discovering local services, Meituan Waimai for on-demand delivery services, and Mobike for bike-sharing services. Meituan has 400.4 million Annual Transacting Users and 5.8 million Annual Active Merchants as of December 2018. The Company operates in over 2,800 cities and counties in China.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements relating to the business outlook, forecast business plans and growth strategies of the Company. These forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to the Company and are stated herein on the basis of the outlook at the time of this press release. They are based on certain expectations, assumptions and premises, some of which are subjective or beyond our control. These forward-looking statements may prove to be incorrect and may not be realized in future. Underlying the forward-looking statements is a large number of risks and uncertainties. Further information regarding these risks and uncertainties is included in our other public disclosure documents on our corporate website.

For media inquiries, please contact:

Meituan
pr.global@meituan.com  
ir@meituan.com

Edmond Lococo
ICR Inc.
Email: Edmond.Lococo@icrinc.com
Tel: +86 (10) 6583-7510

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