Delivery company Meituan will soon have its own mapping service
Introducing maps will put Meituan in direct competition with tech giants Alibaba and Baidu
Meituan Dianping , a Chinese online food delivery-to-ticketing firm, has started building a mapping service, aiming to enter an area currently dominated by Alibaba’s AutoNavi and Baidu Maps.
A spokeswoman for Meituan told Reuters the company was working on the project, after it advertised more than a dozen positions on job hunting website Lagou.com on Tuesday for a new service it called “Meituan Maps”. The positions it is looking for range from data mining engineer to machine learning expert.
“We can confirm that Meituan is working on a mapping business,” the spokeswoman said.
Meituan Dianping: Settle all your local needs on one app
Chinese media last month reported that Meituan had hired a former vice-president at peer-to-peer second-hand car trading platform Renrenche, who was previously employed by Baidu Maps, to join the team. Meituan’s spokeswoman confirmed the hiring.
Meituan, a cross between U.S. discounting platform Groupon and online review firm Yelp, is a so-called super app offering many services such as hotel booking, movie ticketing, and listings of local businesses.
Meituan recently surpassed search giant Baidu and e-commerce giant JD.com Inc in market capitalisation.
Meet Baidu, China’s homegrown search engine
A source familiar with the matter told Reuters that Meituan Maps was part of the firm’s location-based services platform and was aimed at improving navigation for the unit’s bike sharing, ride hailing and public transportation services.
Meituan’s spokeswoman said the location-based services platform was established in October.
AutoNavi and Baidu Maps are the two leading mapping apps in China, although others like Tencent Maps also exist.
Telecom giant Huawei is also planning to launch a mapping service, Map Kit, in October, as it faces a potential U.S. ban on using Google Maps in its smartphones overseas.
Meituan currently uses AutoNavi and Tencent Maps for its bike sharing and ride hailing services. Meituan’s local listing app Dazhong Dianping, dubbed China’s Yelp, also embeds Baidu Maps and AutoNavi for users who need directions to restaurants or clubs they find on the Dazhong Dianping app.
(Abacus is a unit of the South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba.)
For more insights into China tech, sign up for our tech newsletters, subscribe to our Inside China Tech podcast, and download the comprehensive 2019 China Internet Report. Also roam China Tech City, an award-winning interactive digital map at our sister site Abacus.
