Older users are starting to order food online thanks to the coronavirus pandemic

Meituan says it’s signing up new users as people go back to work in China

Meituan

Karen Chiu

Published: 3:05pm, 12 Mar 2020

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This article originally appeared on ABACUS

The coronavirus is converting older people to food delivery apps, Meituan says in a new report.

Millennials in their 20s are usually the core users of Meituan. But as people in China returned to work after an extended holiday, the company saw that people in their 40s and 50s made up more than two-thirds of new users. With authorities encouraging workers to minimize contact, many have chosen to order in and eat alone in the office.

Online food delivery has been hit hard by the epidemic as reports of sick couriers fueled health fears. Food delivery apps in China have seen daily active users plummet by about half since January, according to a recent QuestMobile report. Meituan, though, says it saw a surge in new users when people went back to work. Businesses in some second-tier cities were even better than before the epidemic, including Xinjiang capital city Urumqi and Harbin, the second biggest city in Northeast China.

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