SHANGHAI – Chinese food delivery giant Meituan posted a bigger-than-expected 21.4% rise in quarterly revenue on Friday as it fended off competition from powerful rivals such as Alibaba-backed Ele.me.
Meituan – whose so-called super app provides services ranging from bike-sharing, movie ticketing, mapping, to food delivery and restaurant bookings – said its total revenue rose to 60.13 billion yuan ($8.76 billion) for the three months ended December, from 49.52 billion yuan a year earlier.
Analysts on average expected a revenue of 57.88 billion yuan, data from Refinitiv shows.
Its net loss for the fourth quarter narrowed to 1.08 billion yuan, from a loss of 5.34 billion yuan a year earlier.
Meituan was hit hard by COVID-19 curbs last year but it swung to a profit in the third quarter as it cut back investment on new initiatives.
($1 = 6.8641 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Casey Hall; Editing by Himani Sarkar)