after the close of the Hong Kong stock market on March 25th, Meituan released the Q4 2121 and annual financial report.

The financial report shows that the revenue of Meituan Q4 was 49.5 billion yuan, up 31.6% year-on-year, and the annual revenue was 179 billion yuan, up 56.1% year-on-year. Despite the adjustment, the net loss in a single quarter still reached 3.9 billion.

affected by multiple factors, such as "epidemic situation+consumption+fee reduction subsidies", the growth rate of two mature businesses of Meituan in this quarter-take-out and wine-in-store travel, especially take-out has dropped significantly, but the overall efficiency has improved in the fourth quarter when the investment in marketing and subsidies has decreased.

the improvement of efficiency does not come from the merchant side, but from the subsidy to users and the decrease of rider subsidy due to seasonal factors. On the contrary, in the financial report of the new quarter, the US Mission disclosed the "delivery service fee+technical service fee (commission)" for the first time to clearly let the outside world know its efforts in promoting the transparency of the rate.

in addition, the revenue of new business in this quarter was RMB 14.7 billion, up 58.7% year-on-year, and the operating loss was RMB 11.2 billion, down 69.5% year-on-year.

after the internet giants enter a new round of investment, we need to look at the financial report of Meituan in two. On the one hand, it shows the market the status of its main business, on the other hand, it also needs to be cautious about the new business swallowing profits and cash flow.

On the whole, strong execution will still be deeply rooted in the genes of Meituan in 2121. In the short term, although it is deeply affected by multiple unfavorable factors such as "rider social security and rate subsidy", in the long run, the attitude of the US Mission to continue to explore has not changed.

After falling to a stage low of HK$ 113, Meituan's share price has recently rebounded. With the release of financial report, short-term emotional risk has been gradually released, and the cash flow support brought by strong financial performance is superimposed, and the safety margin of Meituan's share price may be forming.

despite the impact of the epidemic and the weak economic environment, Meituan's food and beverage take-away income still showed strong "resilience" in the fourth quarter.

The revenue in a single quarter was 26 billion yuan, up by 21.3% year-on-year. Although the month-on-month ratio dropped slightly, it was quite difficult to consider the big environmental factors. Because of the decline in subsidies for users and riders, the efficiency of food and beverage take-out has increased this quarter.

specifically, in the fourth quarter, the total transaction volume (GTV) of Meituan's take-away business was RMB 188.6 billion, up by 21% year-on-year; The number of take-away orders reached 3.9 billion, a year-on-year increase of 17.4% (equivalent to 42.5 million orders sent by riders every day), slightly exceeding the original range of 15-17% for companies and investment banks.

Due to the declining subsidies to users, the unit price of Meituan take-out in this quarter increased slightly by nearly 3% year-on-year to reach 48 yuan. Although it declined slightly from the previous month, it was consistent with the consistent seasonal performance.

It is worth noting that, under the guidance of the fee reduction of the take-away platform, Meituan split the take-away commission into delivery service fee and technical service fee (i.e. commission) for the first time this quarter, so as to clearly explain to the outside world its efforts in promoting the transparency of the rate.

The financial report shows that Meituan's revenue related to food and beverage take-out and delivery services in this quarter was 14.3 billion, and the corresponding delivery-related costs of this sector were 18.3 billion. In fact, "food and beverage take-out and delivery service" is the delivery fee charged by Meituan to merchants. Based on the order of 3.9 billion in the fourth quarter, it is roughly estimated that for the order of 1P (accounting for nearly 67% of the total order), Meituan subsidized more than 1.5 yuan in the fourth quarter.

and from the perspective of the whole year, this figure is roughly the same. In 2121, the annual distribution cost of US group riders will reach 68 billion, while the annual catering distribution service income will be 54.2 billion.

Although the distribution service business is still not profitable, Meituan still said, "The company will continue to strengthen the capacity of the distribution network, because better distribution services can create value for businesses."

in fact, it is the commission, that is, the current technical service fee, that is used to make up for the loss of the distribution service business. In the fourth quarter, Meituan realized a revenue of 7.8 billion yuan in this project, with a liquidation rate of 4.1%, which was lower than the 5%-6% previously widely speculated. As a category with high frequency, low customer order and low gross profit, the commission rate of Meituan is already low compared with all categories of physical e-commerce (including high-realization clothing).

on the basis of promoting the transparency of rates before, on March 1, the United States Mission released six specific measures to help businesses, including commission concessions for small and medium-sized businesses in high-risk areas and difficulties in the epidemic, improving the online operation ability of small businesses, providing take-away intelligent hardware, etc., to help small and medium-sized businesses hit by the epidemic and in trouble. According to the previous forecast of Meituan, this measure is expected to benefit millions of merchants.

On the other hand, the wine tour business continued its steady performance. In this quarter, Meituan recorded 8.7 billion yuan in this project, up 22.2% year-on-year. Although the growth rate of this income declined slightly due to the epidemic, its operating profit increased from 2.8 billion yuan in the fourth quarter of 2121 to 3.9 billion yuan due to the optimization of income structure.

The financial report shows that in the fourth quarter, the commission income of Meituan's wine travel business reached 4 billion, with a year-on-year growth rate of 14%, with a very obvious slowdown; In contrast, the online marketing service revenue increased by 31% to 4.6 billion, accounting for 47% of the revenue, which exceeded the commission income for the first time.

On the one hand, the increase in the proportion of high-margin advertising business is limited by the repeated epidemic, which has affected the hotel business (the overnight volume of Q4 Meituan Hotel is only 15 million, down 4% year-on-year), but on the other hand, 36Kr guesses that this may become the long-term strategy of Meituan.

As advertising revenue mainly comes from performance advertising, it is a variable cost based on the willingness of merchants. Compared with the recommended advertising platform, Meituan advertising products are more conducive to the long-term operation of small and medium-sized businesses and have a higher return on investment.

the new business has also performed well in this quarter.

the financial report shows that in the fourth quarter, Meituan's new business revenue increased by 58.7% year-on-year to RMB 14.7 billion, of which the operating loss expanded to RMB 11.2 billion year-on-year, but the operating loss rate narrowed to 69.5% (in the third quarter of last year, the new business loss was RMB 11.9 billion).

Meituan's new business mainly includes Meituan's optimization, Meituan's flash purchase (including Meituan's drug purchase), B2B supply chain business, bicycles, charging treasures and other businesses. According to the forecast of brokers, the preferred income of Meituan in this quarter may be around 8 billion, and the loss rate has further dropped to 11%-15%.

According to the data obtained by 36Kr, Meituan Youxuan still occupies the first place in the industry in the fourth quarter, with its GMV in Q4 approaching 43 billion, and its daily order reaching 44 million, exceeding the 38 billion and 42 million who bought more vegetables. After the sales subsidy is reduced and the performance cost is further optimized, the loss rate preferred by Meituan is expected to be further reduced in 2122, and the goal of breakeven in 2123 will be achieved.

the flash purchase business is called another big surprise in the new business. Chen Shaohui, CFO of Meituan, revealed at the conference call that GTV purchased by Meituan in flash last year has accounted for 12% of the take-away business, reaching 84.2 billion.

In the past February, the daily order peak of Meituan's flash purchase (including Meituan's drug purchase) exceeded 6.3 million. Chen Shaohui predicted that the medium-term goal of flash purchase business is that the daily order volume will reach 11 million orders, and the growth rate of flash purchase business this year will also exceed the growth rate of catering take-away business.

optimistically, in 2122, with the deterioration of financing environment and the normalization of strict supervision, Meituan should also put more emphasis on the optimization of operational efficiency in business optimization, and the subsequent loss narrowing is certain.

However, after the loss of new business narrowed, the speed of Meituan's new business also slowed down obviously: as of Q4, the number of annual live buyers of Meituan reached 691 million, an increase of 23 million compared with the end of last quarter, lagging behind 61 million and 39 million in the second and third quarters.

However, considering the declining subsidies for community group buying and the poor performance of the industry as a whole, Meituan's user growth has been quite excellent, which has also made it the largest Internet platform in China for four consecutive quarters.

In the previous telephone conference, Wang Xing said that the preferred goal of Meituan is to bring 311-411 million new users to Meituan in the next few years. This year, Meituan has achieved nearly 211 million new users, and the original intention of entering the business is being realized.

new users not only constitute the consumption base of commodity retail business, but also bring increments to the original businesses such as take-out, wine tours in stores, grocery shopping and flash shopping, which is one of the important reasons why the core business of Meituan has maintained its growth resilience in recent years.

The boundary between service retailing and commodity retailing is becoming more and more blurred, and the demand of consumers is becoming more and more comprehensive. The popularity of mobile terminals based on geographical location paves the way for Meituan to make efforts in commodity retail, while the establishment of leading edge in local life field gives Meituan a reassurance in commodity retail.

"We are convinced that the end result of online retailing is that everything comes from the store." This is the judgment made by the US Mission in the third quarterly report. Next, what Meituan needs to do is to feed the newly recruited users back to the take-away catering and wine travel business, which will further deepen the barriers of its own business.

With the expansion of Meituan's optimization and flash purchase business, its cost is decreasing marginally, but why is its loss only reduced by 711 million yuan compared with the third quarter? The answer is that Meituan's investment in logistics and other infrastructure is increasing.

The financial report shows that the R&D expenditure of Meituan increased by 41% to 4.58 billion yuan year-on-year, accounting for 9.3% of the revenue, far exceeding the growth rate of revenue and overall cost, which is the fastest among Internet companies. Up to now, Meituan * * * has more than 81,111 employees, including more than 8,111 in research and development technology alone.

In fact, take-out or retail is not high-tech, but it needs high-tech to realize it in such a way today.

Take Meituan's intelligent dispatching system as an example, it needs to achieve the optimal matching among consumers, riders and merchants, and it also needs to consider many factors such as whether it is on the way, weather, road conditions, expected delivery time of consumers, meal delivery time of merchants, etc. Based on massive data and artificial intelligence algorithms, it sends "optimal delivery instructions" to the most suitable delivery brother to ensure that the average delivery time is within the acceptable range of consumers and riders, which is extremely important.

as mentioned above, meituan is still losing money in distribution service. With the expansion of business scale, meituan is facing a long-term test in this labor cost, which requires its continuous investment in technology.

Since 2116, Meituan has been involved in the development of unmanned vehicles. In April 2121, the unmanned vehicles developed by Meituan have been upgraded to Magic Bag 21, with an average daily delivery order of more than 1,111, and the unmanned aerial vehicles have also made 211,111 test flights. Up to now, more than 31,111 real orders have been sent, which has played a real role during the epidemic.

According to Meituan, by the end of 2121, Meituan UAV has been in normal trial operation in Shenzhen for nearly 1 years, providing real-time delivery service for UAVs in various regions of Shenzhen. Among them, more than 91% of the core components of the urban low-altitude logistics network are independently developed by Meituan. In addition, the first city low-altitude logistics operation demonstration center in China has landed in Shanghai, and a "3 km 15 min" low-altitude intelligent logistics network based in Shanghai and covering East China will be gradually established.

of course, this will not happen overnight, but with the gradual popularization of machines and the gradual reduction of distribution costs, the iron triangle of platforms, businesses and consumers will benefit for a long time, and it is not extravagant to recreate a beautiful group through technology in the future.

imagine that if a city distribution system with lower distribution cost, more order coverage, faster delivery time and better distribution experience is maturing, why should we worry about all kinds of potential adverse effects?