Exclusive | Meituan to team up with China Starbucks challenger Luckin Coffee on delivery services

Chinese coffee start-up Luckin Coffee is planning a tie-up with Meituan Dianping to deliver coffee and other food products through the on-demand giant’s delivery network in China, according to people familiar with the situation.

The planned tie-up comes after global coffee giant Starbucks announced a partnership with Alibaba’s food delivery arm Ele.me in August to carry out deliveries in China. Before partnering with Alibaba, Starbucks had faced a sales slowdown and had no official delivery channel in the country.

If the collaboration between Luckin and Meituan goes ahead, users will be able to order Luckin Coffee’s products on Meituan’s delivery app Meituan Waimai in more than 20 cities in China, one of the people said, asking not to be named because the information is private.

A Meituan spokesman declined to comment and a Luckin Coffee spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Currently Luckin takeaway orders can only be placed through Luckin’s own app and the delivery service is provided by Chinese logistics firm SF-Express. The partnership with Meituan would add more delivery capacity to Luckin Coffee and at the same time increase fierce competition in China’s food delivery market.

“For Luckin, [the deal means] it can expand further from offline to online in the coffee retail business,” said Zhang Yi, CEO of mobile internet consultancy iiMedia Research Institute. “For Meituan, it might not be aiming for more orders from Luckin … but it wants to send a signal to other warm food providers that it can deliver a cup of warm coffee in a timely manner.”