Food delivery giant Meituan adds more video features to app as Douyin marches into its market with Starbucks and Haidilao
- As ByteDance’s Douyin pushes into the local delivery market, dominant player Meituan has taken a page from Douyin’s video playbook
- Brands such as US coffee giant Starbucks and local hotpot chain Haidilao have been quick to utilise Meituan’s live-streaming capabilities
Meituan is adding video features to its app as China’s food delivery services giant braces for competition from Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, in the online local services sector.
As ByteDance’s Douyin pushes into the local delivery market, dominant player Meituan has taken a page from Douyin’s playbook by using a mix of video content from live streaming to short videos on its platform to facilitate transactions. Analysts say the move could help Meituan to stay popular among younger consumers who are glued to mobile video content.
“Meituan made the move [to launch video content] to cater to [Chinese] consumers’ changing preference for viewing and receiving [online] information,” said Zhang Yi, founder and chief analyst at Guangzhou-based market researcher iiMedia. “The younger Chinese have acclimated to … live-streaming and short video content.”
Brands such as US coffee giant Starbucks and local hotpot chain Haidilao have been quick to utilise Meituan’s live-streaming capabilities, contributing to their increased online sales, according to a statement from Meituan.
Starbucks experimented with selling its frappuccino drinks through Meituan live-streaming last month, and increased national sales by 370 per cent year-on-year in the week it held promotions on the app. Haidilao also saw its weekly sales up by 51 per cent over the same period, according to data provided by Meituan.
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Meituan’s dominance in local delivery is being challenged by Douyin, which has over 600 million daily active users. Since last year, ByteDance has been adding links to videos to take advantage of on-demand local services.
The collaborations are expected to give it access to millions of couriers across the country to fulfil food-delivery orders placed on the short video app, helping it to square up to Meituan’s core market.
Meituan has piloted promotional events dubbed Shen Qiang Shou in Beijing and Shenzhen, mixing the use of “live-streaming, short-form videos, and other formats” to sell flash deals, Wang Xing, co-founder and CEO at the Beijing-based firm, told analysts in its first quarter earnings call. He added that the company would be looking to roll out the services in more regions and “further focus on live-streaming” to stimulate consumer demand.
However, despite the promising initial results, analysts said that Meituan’s relative inexperience in video and the lack of covent variety might be a hurdle for the company in the long run.
“Compared to Douyin, Meituan is a green when it comes to video content production, in terms of creativity and copyright,” said iiMedia’s Zhang.
Meituan needs more variety in its video content to attract more users to its platform, said Zhuang Shuai, founder and chief analyst at e-commerce consultancy Bailian.
Live-streaming content on Meituan is currently hard-wired into selling coupons and deals, he said, and more variety is needed to have a wider impact on the platform.
