On February 18, Meituan's stock price plunged sharply, plunging more than 16% at one point. As of the close of trading on February 18, Meituan fell 14.86% to a stock price of HK$188, and its market value evaporated by more than 100 billion yuan in half a day. This morning it opened low again, and then rose slightly by 1%, and the trend is still sluggish.
The matter has sparked a series of heated discussions. One consensus is that the plunge in Meituan's stock price stems from a policy document from the National Development and Reform Commission, "Several Policies on Promoting the Recovery and Development of Difficult Industries in the Service Sector":
"Guide Internet platform enterprises such as takeaway to further reduce the service fee standards of merchants in the catering industry and reduce the operating costs of relevant catering enterprises." Guide Internet platform enterprises to give preferential service fees to catering enterprises in county-level administrative regions where high-risk areas are located during the epidemic. ”
Capital market concerns: The upper limit of Meituan's pricing power is limited
Behind the plunge in meituan, the core problem that the capital market is worried about is that this paper document points directly to the lifeblood of meituan's profitability: the independent pricing power of commission rates.
After completing the closed loop of user scale accumulation, scene construction and traffic model, many Internet platform companies have begun to form their own fee extraction model.
From Apple, Didi to Meituan, they all have their own extraction systems and rules; as for what the percentage is, its pricing power has always been in the hands of the platform. Capital markets also give high valuations to such platform business models.
From the perspective of Meituan's revenue structure, "commission" has always been the main source of income for Meituan.
According to the financial report, in the third quarter of 2021, Meituan's catering takeaway commission revenue was 23.22 billion yuan, and the number of completed orders was 4.01 billion, with an average commission income of 5.787 yuan per order. Commissions from catering accounted for 47.6% of total revenue.
In the third quarter of 2020, Meituan's catering takeaway commission revenue was 18.25 billion yuan, and the number of completed orders was 3.21 billion, with an average commission income of 5.68 yuan per order, which means that the commission percentage in the third quarter of 2021 was higher than that of the same period last year. If this part of the income is lowered, it will seriously affect the revenue scale of the US group.
But it is more affecting the capital market's expectations for its future - in essence, the independent pricing power proportional to the commission is the weapon at the bottom of the US group's pressure box, this weapon is in hand, you can independently determine the floating space of profits and revenue, when the market is good, this weapon can not be used, but when the bottleneck of development appears, this weapon can not be without.
For example, if the revenue of Meituan slows down one day in the future, it can use its dominant position in the market to increase the commission commission space to achieve future profit growth and meet the expectations of the capital market.
But today's policy orientation is that if the profit growth of the US group slows down in the future, it will not be able to make a fuss about the proportion of the draw - after all, the essence of policy guidance is to set a ceiling standard for the commission, and the survival of the catering industry cannot be disregarded.
In the past, the capital market's optimism about Internet platform enterprises came from the fact that it could establish a market scale by burning money, thereby eliminating competition, and once it reached a monopoly or market dominance, it was almost in control of pricing power.
This kind of "platform tax power" is a business model that sits on the ground and generates gold. Once the bilateral or multilateral network scale effect is formed, the platform has the ability to continuously obtain revenue from the bilateral or multilateral network, and the upper limit of the benefit can be adjusted autonomously.
From the current policy trends, it can be seen that the platform's ability to set the "tax point" independently is being restricted, which is equivalent to restricting the "lower limit" of the unlimited pursuit of profits by capital, which needs to ensure that the merchant has the right to survive, and cannot completely transfer the risk and loss to other participants in the market.
But the capital market is not only panicking that the upper limit of Meituan's core pricing power is blocked, but also worried about the future of this track being included in the basic services.
But in fact, this document is not a regulatory document, nor is it aimed at meituan alone, but involves safeguard measures for many industries such as service industry, catering industry, retail industry, tourism, transportation industry, civil aviation industry, etc. From the perspective of the catering industry, the policy issued by the National Development and Reform Commission is because in the epidemic environment, the dilemma of the catering industry has indeed reached the time to be saved.
According to relevant data, in 2021, 351,000 catering enterprises collapsed in the first half of the year alone, and from January to November 2021, the catering industry revoked or cancelled 809,000 stores. Old restaurant companies such as Haidilao and Chayan Yueshi have also fallen into the storm of closing stores.
Therefore, the regulation of policies is essentially to let the balance of capital over-chase profit growth and efficiency, and it is necessary to consider the sustainable development of the industry and the fairness of distribution.
Platform enterprises and capital should learn to respond to social consensus
It is common knowledge that the starting point of policy orientation is often based on a public opinion demand accumulated over a long enough period of time and the sustainable development of an industry. This is true from the real estate industry to the education and training industry to today's takeaway industry.
The fundamental purpose of a company's existence is to pursue profits rather than charity, and chasing profits is the basis for the survival of enterprises, but when the entire industry is hit by the epidemic environment and is sluggish, if it still blindly pursues profit maximization or even increases commissions based on the dependence of merchants on takeaways, and ignores public opinion and the sustainable development of the industry, it will often encounter policy clamps.
Before the introduction of the policy, enterprises are often given a long enough adjustment period and response period.
In fact, the wave of public opinion triggered by the Meituan commission dates back to the first half of 2020, when a large number of catering companies suffered a blow due to the impact of the epidemic.
In 2020, thousands of catering industries across the country are writing to Meituan, calling for a commission reduction to stay alive.
At that time, from the 1987 enterprises under the Chongqing Catering Chamber of Commerce jointly issued the "Proposal Letter on the Comprehensive Reduction of Commissions on Catering Takeaway Platforms" to the Hebei Rice and Cooking Association issued the "Open Letter to the E-commerce Platform" and then to the Yunnan Catering and Gastronomy Industry Association to join, after which a number of catering associations in Shandong Province jointly appealed to the takeaway APP to reduce the commission... Then to Guangdong to take the baton...
Their demands are simple and consistent: they all want Meituan takeaway to reduce commission rates.
At that time, the Guangdong Catering Association pointed out that the high additional selling commission charged by Meituan takeaway to catering enterprises had exceeded the limit of catering enterprises, and the share of Meituan takeaway in the Guangdong catering takeaway market was as high as 60-90%, which had reached the market dominance position stipulated in the Anti-Monopoly Law.
At the same time, the association pointed out that Meituan is suspected of implementing monopoly pricing, setting many unfair trading rules, and continuing to significantly increase the proportion of deductions, and the commission of newly opened catering merchants is as high as 26%, which has greatly exceeded the critical point endured by the majority of catering merchants.
Due to the dominant position of the market, merchants have no bargaining power in the face of the US group.
As early as 2020, some media data pointed out that meituan's commission has been rising in the past few years, from the initial 8%, to 16% around 2018, to 20% in some areas in 2020, precisely because the commission rate of Meituan takeaway has reached the profit and loss line of some small and medium-sized merchants, resulting in a rebound of a large number of catering enterprises. At that time, people began to realize that Meituan's commission to merchants could always rise, even if the merchants were losing money.
According to the data of the past few days, Meituan charges commissions about 20-25% of the order price for individual merchants, and about 15% for chain merchants.
The author previously pointed out that in the epidemic environment, the impact on the catering industry is continuing, the catering industry to survive, in the case of high commission ratio can not afford, and it is difficult to achieve profitability, the catering industry is likely to consider passing on the cost to consumers.
There may be three ways to do this: first, consider reducing the portion size of takeaway food; second, consider reducing the quality and quality of takeaway food ingredients. Third: consider raising the price of takeaway.
In fact, from the current situation of takeaway catering, takeaway prices are becoming more and more expensive and are becoming a consensus of consumers, to some extent, the high commissions of takeaway platforms are causing continuous negative chain effects on the catering industry and ordinary consumers.
And we look back at the two years from 2020 to 2022, when a large number of catering companies and all sectors of society called for the US group to reduce the commission, and believe that it is suspected of monopoly pricing, in a period of up to two years, the social consensus has long been formed, for the platform enterprises, this social consensus is actually the capital behind the platform enterprises need to predict the danger signal.
That is to say, the public opinion rebound stimulated by meituan's excessive commission rate is not a day or two, whether it is meituan as a platform enterprise or the capital behind the platform enterprise, in fact, there is enough time to prejudge and make commission adjustment measures in response to public expectations and merchant demands.
But in fact, meituan has not made corresponding measures in the past two years to respond to public expectations in terms of commission adjustment, and from its revenue point of view, its commission income is still growing.
In essence, the policy guidance affirms that Meituan's platform commission as a business model is reasonable, but it is necessary to determine the standards of the upper and lower limits, and while obtaining profits, it is necessary to consider the future of the entire catering industry.
That is to say, after two years of the epidemic, the negative effects of Meituan's commission model on the catering industry are emerging.
The lesson brought to the platform and capital by the plunge of the US group today is that platform companies should learn to respond to public expectations and social consensus in a timely manner, and capital is risk-averse, but the risk can also be predicted.
If the US group adjusts the commission in time to calm down the overly sharp public opinion, it can also control the initiative to cater to the policy direction, and investors will not be so panicked.
The valuation model of the platform economy needs to be reconsidered
Behind the plunge of the US group, there are many aspects, the proportion of the US group's commission is too high, in fact, on the one hand, it also needs this part of the income to cover more costs, especially the cost of riders.
According to Meituan's 2020 data, more than 80% of its commission is used to pay riders.
However, with the increasing discussion of the social security of riders in the industry, last year, the national multi-ministry jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Implementing the Responsibility of Online Catering Platforms to Effectively Safeguard the Rights and Interests of Takeaway Delivery Workers", which mentioned the improvement of the social security payment of riders and the support of takeaway personnel to participate in social security.
This means that if Meituan does not explore other second revenue growth models, it may be increasingly difficult for the profit model of commissioning to cover operating costs. New businesses such as Meituan grocery shopping and Meituan flash purchase also need to burn money, and Meituan is also under huge cash flow pressure.
This, in turn, may also lead the capital market to reconsider the valuation model of the platform economy and the business model of sitting on the ground to generate gold.
In the past, the takeaway industry under the blessing of capital pursued profit maximization, but this was inconsistent with the direction of "common prosperity" of the policy.
Capital market investors are worried that in the continuous and repeated epidemic environment, Meituan cannot predict the scope and duration of medium- and high-risk areas in the future, and the upper limit of its core business model is limited, which is not in line with the core purpose of the capital market to chase growth.
But in fact, the plunge in Meituan's stock price also reflects that capital is too short-sighted and investors are too sensitive to the policy risks of the market.
After all, from a long-term point of view, the catering industry and the MEITUAN are a symbiotic and win-win relationship, if the policy guidance direction allows more vendors and restaurants to survive, it is actually a good thing for the long-term development of the METUAN.
Overall, behind the plunge in Meituan, it is also related to its high valuation, the stock price fell by 60%, and there is a market value of 1.15 trillion yuan, which is not in line with the pricing logic of Meituan.
Assuming a normal net profit margin of 5%, PE is 20 times, the profit corresponding to the market value of 1 trillion is 50 billion, and the revenue corresponding to 50 billion is 1 trillion. But the key is that Meituan's profit is now negative, which is inconsistent with meituan's normal valuation logic.
The decline in the valuation of meituan also means that the platform economic model has encountered new challenges.
At present, the US group is still in the stage of squeezing the bubble, how long this process will take, and it depends on when the US group will form the second growth curve in addition to the commission.
How to seek growth at the same time, let the catering industry, and the entire catering industry to form a win-win situation, and improve the impression of the entire group brand at the level of public opinion, learn to respond to public expectations and social consensus in a timely manner, which determines how high the value and valuation ceiling of meituan are.
-----------------------------------
36Kr Business Tech Observer of the Year 2019
Author of the Year in Titanium Media in 2018 and 2019
2017 Sina Technology Author of the Year
2016 Science and Technology Self-media Insight Star
Tencent Technology's most influential self-media in 2015
Baidu, Titanium Media, Tiger Sniff, 36Kr, Toutiao, Tencent, Sohu, Surging and Snowball and more than 40 columnists