https://www.scmp.com/rss/524509/feed The latest news and updates on Wang Xing, a prominent Chinese internet entrepreneur, best known as the founder and CEO of Meituan, a leading e-commerce service platform. He previously launched several ventures, including social networks like Xiaonei (later Renren) and China’s first microblogging site, Fanfou, demonstrating his persistent entrepreneurial spirit despite early setbacks. Under his leadership since 2010, Meituan has grown from a group-buying site into a dominant on-demand delivery... en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com SCMP’s Asia desk SCMP’s Asia desk Thailand has sought to counter perceptions of rising holiday budgets, maintaining that the country is not “too expensive” for South Korean tourists looking for cost-effective indulgence and comprehensive wellness. According to officials from the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), the perceived squeeze on the wallet cited by some South Korean visitors is a result of exchange rate volatility rather than the kingdom’s inflation. “Our inflation rate is not that high. In fact, Thailand’s internal... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/lifestyle-culture/article/3343469/thailand-plays-down-too-expensive-concerns-south-korean-visitors?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/lifestyle-culture/article/3343469/thailand-plays-down-too-expensive-concerns-south-korean-visitors?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 13 Feb 2026 08:25:31 +0000 Wency Chen,Ann Cao Wency Chen,Ann Cao China’s food-delivery giant Meituan swung to a deep quarterly loss, as a costly battle with Alibaba Group Holding’s instant commerce business eroded margins and kept revenue growth modest. The Beijing-based company on Friday reported revenue of 95.5 billion yuan (US$13.3 billion) for the three months to September, up 2 per cent year on year, missing analysts' estimates of 97.5 billion yuan. However, it booked an operating loss of 19.8 billion yuan, compared with a 13.7 billion yuan operating... https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3334568/meituan-slides-loss-milk-tea-subsidy-war-instant-commerce-rival-alibaba?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3334568/meituan-slides-loss-milk-tea-subsidy-war-instant-commerce-rival-alibaba?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 28 Nov 2025 13:36:44 +0000 Orange Wang Orange Wang Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn will this month embark on the first trip to China by a Thai monarch since the two nations established diplomatic ties half a century ago. The state visit, at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping and scheduled to take place from November 13 to 17, will make China “the first major country” that the Thai king has officially visited since ascending the throne in 2016, according to Beijing’s foreign ministry. “In recent years … bilateral relations have... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3331951/king-maha-vajiralongkorn-make-first-china-trip-thai-monarch-50-years?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3331951/king-maha-vajiralongkorn-make-first-china-trip-thai-monarch-50-years?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 07 Nov 2025 09:31:45 +0000 Bloomberg Bloomberg Once a bright spot in the economy, Thailand’s tourism sector appears to be losing its shine. Even with an expected bump in foreign arrivals during the peak travel season at the end of the year, the country’s main tourism body still expects just 33.4 million visitors for 2025, an almost 6 per cent drop from 35.5 million last year. That’s the first decline in a decade outside the pandemic, and underscores the country’s challenge in trying to revive tourist arrivals, which remain below pre-Covid... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3329113/thailand-faces-first-non-covid-tourist-decline-decade-driven-chinese-safety-fears?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3329113/thailand-faces-first-non-covid-tourist-decline-decade-driven-chinese-safety-fears?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 15 Oct 2025 09:00:27 +0000 Coco Feng,Wency Chen Coco Feng,Wency Chen Since April, mainland Chinese consumers have been spoiled for choice, as instant commerce competition brought dazzling promotional subsidies and speedy deliveries right to their doorsteps. Instant commerce – a turbocharged combination of online shopping and swift dispatch – had already made a typical lunchbox order cost around US$1 or US$2, which covered the food and the delivery fee. On-demand delivery giant Meituan’s “Grouping for Good Meals” campaign, for example, offered a four-dish set meal... https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3325354/how-chinas-retail-market-evolving-amid-alibaba-and-meituans-instant-commerce-war?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3325354/how-chinas-retail-market-evolving-amid-alibaba-and-meituans-instant-commerce-war?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Sep 2025 02:06:12 +0000 Ann Cao Ann Cao Alibaba Group Holding on Wednesday launched an artificial intelligence-powered ranking feature on its online mapping service Amap, as the tech giant doubles down on AI applications and deepens its rivalry with food delivery leader Meituan. Amap Street Stars, a ranking featured on the app’s homepage, used AI algorithms to rank offline destinations including restaurants, hotels and tourist attractions, to “advance Amap’s role as the gateway for lifestyle services”, Alibaba said at the launch event... https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3324989/alibabas-amap-ranking-feature-latest-salvo-against-meituan-chinas-e-commerce-wars?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3324989/alibabas-amap-ranking-feature-latest-salvo-against-meituan-chinas-e-commerce-wars?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 10 Sep 2025 04:23:33 +0000 Ann Cao Ann Cao Alibaba Group Holding has fired another shot at on-demand delivery giant Meituan, with a campaign that brings merchants from its Tmall business-to-consumer shopping platform onto its Taobao Instant Commerce site. The campaign – dubbed “Jishigou”, which translates to instant purchase in Chinese – has seen more than 260 brands on Alibaba’s Tmall premium retail platform join its instant commerce service, the company said on Tuesday. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post. Taobao Shangou,... https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3324924/alibaba-mobilises-merchants-premium-tmall-site-join-instant-commerce-drive?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3324924/alibaba-mobilises-merchants-premium-tmall-site-join-instant-commerce-drive?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 09 Sep 2025 12:17:10 +0000 Ben Jiang Ben Jiang Meituan CEO Wang Xing is rallying employees around the firm’s instant commerce efforts, overseas expansion and greater social security for delivery workers, more than a week after reporting a sharp fall in second-quarter earnings amid a bruising price war with Alibaba Group Holding and JD.com. In his all-hands letter to staff over the weekend that was widely shared online, Wang said Meituan had served more than 770 million users over the past 12 months through the 14.5 million merchants on its... https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3324766/meituan-rallies-employees-around-expansion-plans-job-prospects-amid-bruising-delivery-war?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3324766/meituan-rallies-employees-around-expansion-plans-job-prospects-amid-bruising-delivery-war?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 08 Sep 2025 11:00:14 +0000 Bloomberg Bloomberg Thai Airways International’s diversified global markets are buffering Thailand’s national carrier from decreasing Chinese tourists to the Southeast Asian country, according to Chief Executive Officer Chai Eamsiri. “It is a different picture between Thailand and Thai Airways,” Chai said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. Lingering safety concerns stemming from news of a failed kidnapping near Thailand’s border with Myanmar of Chinese actor Wang Xing early this year continue to weigh on... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3324206/thai-airways-defies-chinese-tourist-slump-global-growth-strategy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3324206/thai-airways-defies-chinese-tourist-slump-global-growth-strategy?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 03 Sep 2025 11:19:08 +0000 Danielle Popov Danielle Popov On-demand local services giant Meituan has become the latest Chinese Big Tech company to release an open-source large language model (LLM) to market, more than two years after it acquired mainland AI start-up Light Year for US$281 million. Beijing-based Meituan, the long-standing leader of China’s food delivery market, on Monday released and open-sourced its own LLM, called LongCat-Flash-Chat, via artificial intelligence developer platforms Hugging Face and GitHub, as well as the model’s... https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3324072/chinese-delivery-giant-meituan-unleashes-open-source-ai-model-take-alibaba-deepseek?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3324072/chinese-delivery-giant-meituan-unleashes-open-source-ai-model-take-alibaba-deepseek?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 02 Sep 2025 11:00:21 +0000 Carl Zhang Carl Zhang Chinese police are investigating at least five cases of missing teenagers believed to have been caught up in scam centres, including some who have lost contact with their families after travelling to Myanmar. Police in Hefei, the capital of Anhui province in central China, issued a notice on Wednesday, confirming the disappearance of an 18-year-old high school student who had travelled to a city in Yunnan, a southwestern province on the border with Myanmar. According to his parents, the student... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3318564/chinese-police-investigating-5-missing-teens-issue-further-warnings-about-telecoms-crime?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3318564/chinese-police-investigating-5-missing-teens-issue-further-warnings-about-telecoms-crime?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 17 Jul 2025 08:02:49 +0000 Bloomberg Bloomberg Thailand aims to boost tourist arrivals and spending from the Middle East and Southeast Asia to help offset declining revenue, largely caused by a drop in visitors from China. “The Middle East market is a supporting factor helping to boost tourism revenue as it currently has a growth of about 17 per cent to 18 per cent,” Tourism Authority of Thailand Governor Thapanee Khiatpaibool said on Monday. “We need to increase the volume of arrivals from the Middle East and airlines.” The Tourism... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3318128/thailand-pivots-china-southeast-asia-middle-east-tourists-amid-arrival-decline?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3318128/thailand-pivots-china-southeast-asia-middle-east-tourists-amid-arrival-decline?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 14 Jul 2025 08:16:08 +0000 Edith Mao Edith Mao A Chinese model from the southern province of Guangdong has been rescued from Myanmar after he was lured under the pretext of an overseas job last month, according to the Chinese embassy in Thailand. “The Chinese citizen surnamed Zhong has been rescued under the collaborative efforts of all parties,” the embassy said in a statement on Friday. “We once again warn Chinese citizens to beware of overseas ‘high-paying job’ scams. Foreign nationals need proper work permits for employment in... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3316960/chinese-model-lured-myanmar-scam-job-rescued-after-sister-raises-alarm-thailand?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3316960/chinese-model-lured-myanmar-scam-job-rescued-after-sister-raises-alarm-thailand?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 04 Jul 2025 08:42:16 +0000 Wency Chen Wency Chen Alibaba Group Holding’s instant commerce service announced on Wednesday a substantial subsidy programme totalling 50 billion yuan (US$7 billion) over the next 12 months for both consumers and merchants, intensifying the fierce competition in China’s on-demand delivery sector, where JD.com and Meituan are also major players. Consumers using Taobao’s in-app Shangou service, the instant commerce business of Alibaba, will enjoy significant incentives, including cash vouchers, free purchase coupons,... https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3316646/alibabas-us7-billion-subsidy-deepens-chinas-instant-e-commerce-war-jdcom-meituan?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3316646/alibabas-us7-billion-subsidy-deepens-chinas-instant-e-commerce-war-jdcom-meituan?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 02 Jul 2025 11:00:10 +0000