Recently, Meituan unveiled its 2024 financial report, showcasing robust performance and embarking on a new chapter.

According to the report, Meituan's revenue for 2024 totaled 337.6 billion yuan, marking a 22.0% year-on-year increase. Core local business revenue amounted to 250.247 billion yuan, up 21% from 206.9 billion yuan in the previous year, while new business revenue reached 87.3 billion yuan, with operating losses narrowing by 64%.

Benefiting from the steady growth of its core local business, Meituan's business development is increasingly robust. Furthermore, with the dawn of the AI era, industry giants are contemplating the next steps for local lifestyle services.

As a technology company bridging offline businesses with the online world, Meituan has amassed extensive scenarios and experience in the local lifestyle services industry. Amid the AI wave, Meituan leverages its unique advantages to realize the connection between the digital and physical worlds, enhancing the imagination of local lifestyle services.

Finding Growth through Synergistic Effects

Meituan's latest financial report revealed record highs in annual transacting users, active merchants, and average annual consumption frequency of transacting users. This growth momentum underscores Meituan's widespread appeal and strong cohesion among users and merchants.

Take instant retail as an example. As of the end of 2024, Meituan Flash had established partnerships with over 5,600 large chain retailers, 410,000 local small merchants, and more than 570 brand merchants. Morgan Stanley estimates in its research report that China's instant retail market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 20% to reach 2 trillion yuan by 2030, with "Meituan most likely to seize this opportunity." The firm believes that by 2030, Meituan will capture 50% of the instant retail market share.

Meituan's efficiency improvements are not solely attributed to its vast traffic inflows. Amid diminishing traffic dividends, the strong synergistic effects stemming from the integration and innovation across Meituan's various business segments represent a new growth avenue for merchants.

Since last year, Meituan has undergone several organizational restructuring adjustments, the most significant of which was merging Meituan Platform, In-store Business Group, Home Delivery Business Group, and Basic R&D Platform into "Core Local Business." This move eliminated the separate In-store and Home Delivery Business Groups, signifying a shift from vertical development across multiple business lines like food delivery, group-buying, and flash sales to an integrated approach within "Core Local Business." This integration fosters mutual promotion through resource sharing, traffic complementarity, and strategic unity.

Based on this organizational restructuring, synergistic effects have begun to emerge.

In July last year, the "Super Membership" integrated dining, entertainment, and leisure services, achieving full-scenario coverage and further upgrading to a nationwide scope. Currently, over 70% of in-store hotel and travel merchants participate in the "Super Membership," and the proportion of orders placed using Super Coupons continues to rise, accounting for more than 40% of total orders in Core Local Business, contributing significantly to GTV growth.

As the local lifestyle services market centered on food delivery transitions from incremental to stock competition, the core driver of business growth for both merchants and platforms gradually shifts from user number growth to user stickiness growth. The "Super Membership" system generated significant synergistic effects within a short period because it achieves full consumption scenario coverage on the platform. This enhances consumer stickiness, which in turn positively impacts merchants' operating performance.

The success of the "Super Membership" serves as a test run following Meituan's strategic adjustment. In the future, as barriers between Meituan's various business segments diminish and business integration becomes smoother, synergistic effects will naturally intensify. This will not only ensure stable growth for merchants but also significantly boost platform operational efficiency.

AI Technology Implementation Unleashes an "Efficiency Revolution"

"Our AI strategy is to attack, not to defend," Wang Xing publicly revealed Meituan's stance on its AI strategy during the financial report conference call.

Large models, generative AI, autonomous driving, intelligent agents... As breakthroughs in artificial intelligence emerge across multiple fronts, the global technology wave has swept through, and various industries have sensed the profound changes this technological revolution may bring.

Unlike search, intelligent driving, content, and other industries, the local lifestyle services sector, which connects offline entities with online consumption and relies heavily on human labor, might seem disconnected from currently popular large models and various tool-type and companion-type AI applications. However, in reality, local lifestyle services, with their rich consumption scenarios and close ties to everyday life, offer vast space for AI technology implementation.

As the undisputed giant in the local lifestyle services market, the data and scenarios that Meituan has accumulated over the long term on both the consumer and supply sides are crucial for AI technology upgrades and breakthroughs.

Overall, Meituan has deployed its AI strategy at three levels: integrating AI into employees' daily work, using AI to upgrade existing products and services for enterprises and consumers, and building an internal large language model.

Examining these three deployment levels, the focal point of AI undoubtedly lies in improving efficiency. Internally, tools like AI programming, meeting and document assistants, image and short video production, and sales AI assistants effectively enhance employees' work efficiency. For businesses, dedicated AI merchant assistants provide full-link operational support, improving operational efficiency, while for consumers, AI technology brings various intelligent tools, enhancing convenience and thus improving their platform experience.

Tailored to different consumption scenarios and diverse needs, AI technology can be implemented in a targeted manner within Meituan's ecosystem, creating new value by optimizing existing products and services. However, the greatest imagination AI brings to local lifestyle services lies not here but in intelligent agents.

Recently, Manus went viral across the internet, showcasing its impressive working capabilities. Earlier, OpenAI also launched an AI agent named "Operator," demonstrating its ability to independently complete complex tasks like booking tickets, shopping, and ordering meals. Meituan aims to launch an AI assistant encompassing all Meituan services within this year, enabling everyone to have a free "life secretary."

Compared to intelligent agents developed by startups that need to mobilize services across apps, Meituan possesses a complete ecosystem. Intelligent agents attached to the platform can seamlessly span all dining, entertainment, and leisure scenarios, providing more efficient solutions for users or merchants.

Therefore, in the future, having AI assist us in planning various aspects of our lives in dining, entertainment, and leisure scenarios will no longer be a fantasy.

Long-term R&D investment has endowed Meituan with a strong technological gene and reaped the fruits of technology. In the case of unmanned delivery, Meituan's drone delivery volume now exceeds 450,000 orders, and its autonomous delivery vehicles have completed 4.91 million orders. This approach reaches many delivery scenarios challenging for human labor and will significantly reduce delivery times and improve efficiency in the future.

Coupled with the accelerated implementation of cutting-edge technologies like large models and embodied intelligence, if Meituan finds the right fit between technology and business, an "efficiency revolution" in local lifestyle services may indeed be on the horizon.

Making Every Participant a "Beneficiary"

Certain growth is underpinned by highly reliable supply. The establishment of Meituan's supply capability hinges on both high-quality and stable supply from merchants and high delivery efficiency from riders. Therefore, riders, merchants, consumers, and the platform fundamentally form a community of shared interests.

The consistent robustness evident in Meituan's financial reports ultimately stems from the win-win situation achieved among the platform, merchants, and riders, enabling this ecosystem to develop in a healthy and benign direction.

In the past two years, impacted by the overall environment, a large number of mid- to high-end restaurants have experienced a downturn. While cost-effective mass consumption has surged, the overall downward shift in the price range of restaurant supply indicates intense internal competition. Almost all restaurant operators agree that business is becoming increasingly challenging.

Therefore, one of Meituan's most direct measures for merchants is to provide financial support. In December 2024, Meituan further increased its support for merchant resources, investing 1 billion yuan in assistance funds to support the innovative development of high-quality catering merchants. This includes supply chain optimization for small and medium-sized catering merchants, store type and supply innovation in different scenarios, and digital upgrades for "China Time-honored Brands." It is reported that 38,000 high-quality merchants have received cash support so far.

A healthy business environment is also a top concern for merchants. Meituan has been committed to simplifying marketing and combating internal competition to create a healthy business environment for merchants. This includes developing more customized, diversified, and efficient marketing tools for merchants, essentially helping them reduce marketing costs.

The healthy development of merchants is a prerequisite for Meituan to meet users' diverse needs through abundant and high-quality supply. Meanwhile, on the rider side, Meituan pays greater attention to comprehensive and multifaceted rights and interests protection to maintain the symbiotic and win-win relationship within this community of shared interests.

In 2024, Meituan implemented a series of measures, including the "Rider-Friendly Community" access solution, the launch of the "Rider Home" function, and the pilot rider fatigue management mechanism. Simultaneously, Meituan also introduced a series of care initiatives, such as anti-fatigue functions on the system side, special care configurations for hearing-impaired riders, and assistance for rider families facing critical illnesses or needing educational aid. According to Meituan's previously disclosed "anti-fatigue" pilot data, riders' average daily working hours range from 5.18 to 6.22 hours.

Regarding the rider social security issue of utmost concern to the outside world, after in-depth research and under the guidance of relevant departments, Meituan has preliminarily formulated a pilot rider social security plan, which will be implemented in some cities starting from the second quarter of this year.

Pursuing ecological win-win situations has always been Meituan's business philosophy, which is also the fundamental reason for Meituan's ability to achieve steady growth in the long run. The continuously increasing number of annual active merchants demonstrates that Meituan's appeal to merchants is growing, and the rising average annual consumption frequency of annual transacting users also indicates enhanced user stickiness, bringing incremental benefits to merchants and riders. This mutually reinforcing development state among the platform, merchants, riders, and consumers is undoubtedly the best interpretation of a healthy and prosperous ecosystem.

Centering on the "Retail + Technology" strategy, Meituan stabilizes the ecosystem with one hand and embraces technology with the other. A healthy ecosystem is not only the driving force behind Meituan's certain growth but also forms a solid "shield" effectively addressing continuous external challenges. Nowadays, Meituan has shifted from a passive to an active stance in its AI strategy, using technology as a "spear" to tackle pain points, giving local lifestyle services greater room for improvement. Meituan's advantages may also be further amplified, ultimately benefiting all parties.

This is precisely the direction Meituan has been striving for and will continue to adhere to in the long run.

Dao Zongyouli, formerly known as Waidaodao, is a new media outlet in the internet and technology circle. This article is original, and any form of reproduction without retaining the author's relevant information is prohibited.