Chinese food delivery giant Meituan considers consolidating data from its different platforms after loss widens amid price war with Alibaba

Meituan Dianping, the Beijing-based on-demand services giant, is exploring the option of integrating all data from its multiple platforms – including food-delivery operation Meituan Waimai, local listing site Dazhong Dianping and bike sharing app Mobike – to “better manage all the data” and gain more leverage in the face of fierce competition across its business sectors.

“The move could eliminate repetitive data,” a Meituan spokesman said. However, the integration of the data is not expected to diminish the overall number of users, he said.

Meituan’s proposal comes after it posted a wider loss for the third quarter ended September, with losses for the period ballooning to 83.3 billion yuan (US$12 billion) compared with a 4.4 billion yuan loss for the same period a year earlier.

The company’s ability to generate a profit is being hurt by the fierce battle for market share with Ele.me and Koubei, which are both incorporated under Alibaba Group Holding and compete in Meituan’s core food delivery business. This summer Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post, pledged to pour “billions” of yuan into Ele.me to further expand its food delivery business.

Meituan’s revenue generated from its food delivery business amounted to 11.2 billion yuan (US$1.6 billion) for the third quarter, contributing 58.6 per cent of its total revenue. The third quarter growth rate for the company’s core business was 84.8 per cent year on year, below its overall growth rate of 97.2 per cent.