(Source: Shanghai Securities News·China Securities Network 2025-09-02)
Shanghai Securities News China Securities Network News (Reporter Liu Xuan) Recently, the former two-strong pattern in the food delivery market has been completely broken, replaced by a new era of "three pillars" of Taobao, JD.com, and Meituan. This change not only reshapes the competitive landscape of the food delivery market, but also affects consumer choices and the future direction of the industry.
Experts said that this "three-legged" structure is no longer just a competition for traffic and subsidies, but more deeply reflects the systematic competition between platforms around user experience, merchant resources and contract fulfillment efficiency.
For a long time, Meituan has occupied an absolutely dominant position in the food delivery market, with its market share once exceeding 70%. However, with the entry of JD.com and Taobao, this pattern was quickly broken. Industry data shows that JD.com's takeaways have captured 23% of the national takeout market in just six months thanks to its quality takeaways and rider benefits; while Taobao's flash sales have quickly captured 37% of the market share through large-scale subsidies, especially the crazy replenishment of milk tea orders. Today, Meituan’s market share has dropped to about 40%, and the food delivery market has officially entered the era of “three pillars”.
Qu Qixing, Professor of w88 casino of International Economics and w88, w88 casinotold a reporter from the Shanghai Stock Exchange that the current competitive landscape of the food delivery market presents three salient features: First, the differentiation of platform positioning is intensifying. Meituan relies on its fulfillment network to build "instant delivery infrastructure", Alibaba achieves "high-frequency scene diversion" through the e-commerce ecosystem, and JD.com uses quality food delivery + supply chain to create a "deterministic service label". The three form misaligned competition.
Second, merchant supply is clearly stratified. Standardized categories focus on scale effects and self-pickup models. Mid- to high-end catering emphasizes quality premiums and meal delivery stability. The depth of penetration of platform digital tools directly determines supply loyalty.
Third, the regulatory framework reshapes the bottom line of competition, and policies such as controlling irrational subsidies, protecting riders’ rights and interests, and food safety traceability promote the industry to incorporate compliance costs into the core of the business model.
Some people in the industry said that in this food delivery war, the input-output ratio has become a key indicator to measure the competitiveness of each platform. Judging from the data in the second quarter of this year, the revenue of the new business segment where JD Takeout is located increased by 8.1 billion yuan month-on-month, while the revenue of the local commercial segment where Meituan Takeaway is located only increased by 1 billion yuan month-on-month. In terms of new investment, JD.com and Meituan invested 21.8 billion yuan and 10.8 billion yuan respectively. Based on this calculation, JD.com’s input-output ratio in the food delivery sector is 2.7:1, which is much higher than Meituan’s 10.8:1.
In addition, user scale and rider capacity are the two core elements of competition among food delivery platforms. In terms of user scale, JD.com APP leads the growth in daily active users (DAU), reaching 180 million, surpassing Meituan’s 171 million. In terms of rider capacity, unlike Meituan and Taobao, which have relatively stable ridership, JD.com provides riders with five insurances and one housing fund as well as rapid growth in orders, attracting a large number of takeaway riders to place orders.
“The formation of this pattern will eventually promote the platform’s transformation from a ‘traffic harvester’ to a ‘value co-creator’. Only by integrating user trust, rider rights, merchant profits and its own efficiency into the same set of sustainable business relationships Only through the environment of declining subsidies and tightening supervision can short-term competitive advantages be transformed into long-term ecological barriers. This "three-legged" game will surely push the industry from "scale competition" to a new stage of "quality symbiosis", said Qu Qixing.
Qu Qixing further stated, the future direction of the food delivery market will be reshaped by three main lines: First, technology-driven efficiency revolution has become the key to competition. The in-depth application of AI in scheduling, forecasting, and pricing can "algorithmize" fulfillment costs, store front-end warehousing, etc. to compress meal delivery and end-of-line costs, and industrialize catering production and instant delivery. The essence of technology driving is to compete for data assets, and precise algorithm models can balance distribution efficiency, user experience and cost.
Second, ecological integration blurs industry boundaries, giving rise to a new scenario of “takeaway + instant retail”. Non-meal scenarios are carried out through the same delivery network and membership system. The platform competes for the ability to allow users to complete more high-determination tasks, which can be monetized through commissions and sales of supporting products. The user life cycle value becomes the starting point of tactics.
Third, compliance and trust build a solid bottom line for development. For constraints such as extreme subsidies that raise compliance costs, platforms need to transform "certainty" into service standards and upgrade user trust into "contract guarantees" through clear service commitments, transparent rates, and traceability standards.
Original link:https://www.cnstock.com/commonDetail/514467?timestap=1757062956657
