The Gojek-Grab SE Asia super app battle with a Meituan twist

Chinese super app Meituan Dianping turned a profit on the back of food delivery in 2019. It's also largely unaffected by Covid. Southeast Asian players Gojek and Grab could really use a favour from Meituan in their super app race. And the odds are in Gojek's favour

Ka Kay Lum, 23 Jun 2020

Despite Covid-19, Hong Kong-listed Meituan Dianping has reported promising financial results for the first quarter of 2020

Southeast Asia is a “follower market”, and Meituan would be a great model for aspiring super apps Grab and Gojek

But the cultural diversity in Southeast Asia is proving to be the main hurdle. It’s no China

The payment space is crucial to help Grab and Gojek accelerate their super app dream. Is Meituan going to be a factor?

Even Covid-time losses haven’t slowed Meituan Dianping down.

Quite the opposite. On 25 May, the day after its quarterly financial results came out, the Chinese super app’s share price on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong was up 10%. It’s only risen since.

The results showed Meituan’s overall losses overall losses South China Morning Post Food delivery giant Meituan Dianping posts quarterly revenue decline amid Covid-19 disruptions Read more widen 32% year-on-year to 1.7 billion RMB (US$240 million) between January-March 2020.

AUTHOR

Ka Kay Lum

Based in Kuala Lumpur, Ka Kay covers investment activities, aka following the money, across Southeast Asia and in-depth stories on the often-overlooked Malaysian startup ecosystem. She was previously a regional writer for Nikkei-owned DealStreetAsia.

View Full Profile

To sign up, you’ll create an account that will give you access to a new free story published once a week and archive of previously published free stories from our Southeast Asia edition. You’ll also receive one email every morning from us introducing the day’s story.

If you’ve already signed up, just enter your email below or login using Facebook or Google.