Meituan's third-quarter earnings report was full of anxiety about Douyin's local life and its determination to fight back.
According to the financial report, Meituan's revenue in the third quarter was 76.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 221%。Adjusted net profit was 5.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 624%。Revenue and profit slightly beat market expectations. Among them, the operating profit of core local businesses (including food and beverage delivery, Meituan flash sales, in-store, hotel and tourism businesses) was 10.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 83% and an operating margin of 175%, down from 201%，2.6 percentage points.
*Meituan said in its financial report that the decline in operating margin was mainly due to the increase in the subsidy rate.
In layman's terms, in order to counter Douyin's attack, Meituan did not hesitate to subsidize it and launched a ** war with Douyin. Although it maintained growth, it sacrificed some profits.
A new round of war is about to break out.
In the face of Douyin's attack, Meituan's current solution is to "retaliate with a tooth for a tooth", strive for subsidies, strive for low prices, and build its own live streaming traffic channels.
The logic of local life is very similar to today's e-commerce. After the consumption is low, the user's consumption mentality has changed a lot. Compared with the loyalty to the platform, the user's behavior tends to be "cheap, go", the logic of the merchant is simpler, and the business is good, that is, which platform has traffic and which platform has a lower commission.
Tik Tok seized the gap. In the early days of entering the local lifestyle business, it focused on low prices to ensure that merchants must be better than Meituan on Douyin. Low prices** can indeed stimulate user demand in a short period of time. As more and more users go to physical stores to shop, they have become Xi to open Douyin to view**.
Douyin has attracted a group of merchants and users through the popularity of single products, and has gradually grown to include more merchants. This is equivalent to moving Meituan's local promotion logic online, and the cost is lower.
And Meituan has put its urgent need for traffic on the table.
Since the beginning of the year, Meituan has been hiring for short** and live-streaming related positions, and has posted more than 100 job requirements. In the financial report, Meituan used "live broadcast" and "short **" as marketing methods that were successfully launched in the second quarter, and Meituan's actions frequently revolved around live broadcasts.
In February this year, the Meituan app began to test the short** function in the tab bar at the bottom of the homepage, attracting a lot of traffic. At that time, "Look and Earn" only had a basic short ** browsing mode of swiping up and down, and the content was also based on life comedy, life hacks, food life, and film and television editing. By July of this year, Meituan's short ** feature had been able to allow users to shoot and upload short ** by themselves.
*Originated from the Internet in early July, Meituan updated the APP homepage for 50% of its users and launched a first-level live broadcast entrance. In August, Meituan's short-term business began to be tested in first-tier cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Chengdu. In October, Meituan adjusted the functional layout of the tab bar on the app's homepage, changing the middle position to the traffic entrance of the short ** function. This is also the first time that Meituan has placed a short ** at the first-level traffic entrance.
In order to promote in-store broadcasting, Meituan also used the logic of local promotion at first. The local team is based in the city, takes the ** orders from local merchants, and brings the goods to the live broadcast room. It is understood that in the past two months, especially for chain brands, Meituan has begun to conduct national live broadcasts at its headquarters to concentrate traffic and generate sales.
It can be seen that Meituan has changed its passive state last year. In addition to guarding his own core area, he also tries to penetrate the hinterland of his opponent.