Meituan.com (美團網), a Chinese group-discount Web site backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴), raised US$700 million from unidentified investors, with chief executive Wang Xing (王興) saying the firm is now worth US$7 billion.
Transaction volumes are expected to increase to 100 billion yuan (US$16.1 billion) this year, and rise to 1 trillion yuan in 2020, Wang said on Sunday at a news conference in Beijing. At the end of last year, the figure was 46 billion yuan, he said.
“We will focus on developing business areas that many people use frequently,” Wang said, listing hotels, food delivery and movie tickets.
While Wang reaffirmed Meituan’s plan to undertake an initial public offering some day, he said the company was not focused on one in the next two years.
Meituan, which has about 20 million active daily mobile users and is part-owned by Alibaba, is tapping China’s surging middle class consumers, who are seeking deals for entertainment and restaurants.
About 90 percent of the platform’s transactions are done through Meituan’s mobile applications. The company competes against Dianping.com (大眾點評網), a Yelp Inc-like Web site backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊), Asia’s No. 2 Internet company.
Meituan has operations in about 1,000 cities, up from from 300 a year ago, Wang said on Sunday. Sales reached 1.9 billion yuan last year, he said.
The company, which began offering its services in March 2010, attracted US$12 million from Sequoia Capital Operations that same year, and a further US$50 million in an investment led by Alibaba and Sequoia in July 2011.
Chicago-based Groupon has a market value of about US$4.9 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
E-commerce spending by Chinese consumers will reach 3.3 trillion yuan by this year, according to a Bain & Co report from August 2013.
China had more than 630 million Web users as of June last year. Beijing-based Meituan offers local business-search services that include consumer-generated reviews. Users can also buy coupons and get group discounts.
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
Taiwanese manufacturers have a chance to play a key role in the humanoid robot supply chain, Tongtai Machine and Tool Co (東台精機) chairman Yen Jui-hsiung (嚴瑞雄) said yesterday. That is because Taiwanese companies are capable of making key parts needed for humanoid robots to move, such as harmonic drives and planetary gearboxes, Yen said. This ability to produce these key elements could help Taiwanese manufacturers “become part of the US supply chain,” he added. Yen made the remarks a day after Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are jointly
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) expects its addressable market to grow by a low single-digit percentage this year, lower than the overall foundry industry’s 15 percent expansion and the global semiconductor industry’s 10 percent growth, the contract chipmaker said yesterday after reporting the worst profit in four-and-a-half years in the fourth quarter of last year. Growth would be fueled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, a moderate recovery in consumer electronics and an increase in semiconductor content, UMC said. “UMC’s goal is to outgrow our addressable market while maintaining our structural profitability,” UMC copresident Jason Wang (王石) told an online earnings
MARKET SHIFTS: Exports to the US soared more than 120 percent to almost one quarter, while ASEAN has steadily increased to 18.5 percent on rising tech sales The proportion of Taiwan’s exports directed to China, including Hong Kong, declined by more than 12 percentage points last year compared with its peak in 2020, the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday last week. The decrease reflects the ongoing restructuring of global supply chains, driven by escalating trade tensions between Beijing and Washington. Data compiled by the ministry showed China and Hong Kong accounted for 31.7 percent of Taiwan’s total outbound sales last year, a drop of 12.2 percentage points from a high of 43.9 percent in 2020. In addition to increasing trade conflicts between China and the US, the ministry said
RSS