[Nail Technology Observation] A few days ago, Meituan released the fourth quarter of 2021 financial report and 2021 annual report. From the perspective of the whole year, there is a development situation of increasing revenue without increasing profits.
According to the financial report, in 2021, Meituan's revenue was 179.1 billion yuan, and the adjusted net loss was 15.6 billion yuan. Compared with 2020, Meituan's revenue increased by 56% year-on-year, but in 2020, Meituan's adjusted net profit was 3.1 billion yuan.
As a leading takeaway company and a leader in the field of life services, why does Meituan have a large loss? "Nail Technology" noted that in response to this financial report, economist Ma Guangyuan posted on social networks: The US group loses money, merchants do not make money, and the riders' income is also very low. Have they all been earned by users?
Of course, there are such doubts, more because of the lack of understanding of the Meituan company. Because the takeaway business is the core business of Meituan, it is also the most recognized business of the outside world, but as an Internet giant, Meituan's business is not limited to the field of takeaway.
"Nail Technology" noted that from the data disclosed in the financial report, there are three main components of meituan's business revenue:
First, the revenue of the catering takeaway business. This is also the most stable and important business of Meituan at present, with revenue of 96.3 billion yuan in 2021, accounting for more than half, an increase of 45.3%.
The second is. Income from in-store and hotel business. This part of the business accounted for a relatively low proportion of Meituan's revenue in the market, with 32.5 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 53%.
The third is new business and other business income. This part of the business, including Meituan Preferred, Meituan Grocery, etc., has a rapid growth in revenue, reaching 50.3 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 84%.
Although Meituan is losing money, not all businesses are losing money. In fact, Meituan's loss was mainly due to the loss of new business. In 2021, the cost of new businesses such as Meituan Preferred and Meituan Grocery Shopping rose by 132.6% to 88.68 billion yuan, and although the revenue increased to 50.3 billion yuan, it still lost 38.4 billion yuan.
In contrast, the net profit of food and beverage takeaway in 2021 was 6.2 billion yuan, an increase of 117.9% year-on-year; the net profit of in-store, hotel and tourism was 14.1 billion yuan, an increase of 72.3% year-on-year. However, although these two parts are profitable, they cannot make up for the loss of new business.
Therefore, on the whole, Meituan's catering takeaway business contributed the largest revenue, the in-store wine and tourism business contributed the most profits, and the new business revenue grew the fastest, contributing the greatest strength to the double-digit growth of Meituan's revenue. It should be said that each of the three major businesses has its own contribution.
In addition, Ma Guangyuan's statement that "riders have low income" may not be in line with the facts. Judging from the financial report, meituan is actually constantly improving in terms of delivery costs, so that "income cannot be made up". Wang Xing, CEO of Meituan, said that the company's distribution service revenue in the fourth quarter was 14.3 billion yuan, far below the related cost of 18.3 billion yuan, which means that each single loss is more than 1 yuan.
In fact, the cost of distribution being higher than the revenue from distribution did not appear in the fourth quarter. From the perspective of the whole year of 2021, Meituan's catering delivery service revenue from merchants and users was 54.2 billion yuan, while the annual rider delivery cost was 68.2 billion yuan, accounting for 71% of the total revenue of 96.3 billion yuan for catering takeaway.
In other words, the delivery income cannot actually make up for the delivery cost of the rider, and can only be compensated by commissions, marketing services and other income. According to the 2021 financial report, the catering takeaway revenue includes catering takeaway delivery services, commissions, online marketing services and others, of which the catering takeaway delivery service revenue is 54.2 billion yuan, accounting for 56%; the commission income is 28.5 billion yuan, accounting for 29.6%.
It can be seen that meituan's loss is a structural loss and a strategic loss in the business, not a loss in the takeaway business, in fact, the catering takeaway business is still profitable.
In the future, "Nail Technology" believes that there are two main factors affecting the profitability of the US group: first, whether the commission ratio will be reduced, if it is lowered, it will lead to a reduction in commission income, and the distribution cost is difficult to reduce, which will undoubtedly reduce the profit performance; the second is whether the new business can achieve the transformation from scale expansion to refined operation, if the new business such as buying vegetables and preferring can stop the loss in time or the loss is greatly narrowed, then the overall turnaround of the US group is completely expected. (Nail Technology original, reprint must indicate the source: Nail Technology Network)