Selling cars has quietly become the newest frontline in the widening rivalry between JD.com and Meituan. Meituan this month announced a partnership with Shanghai Xiche Future Intelligent Technology to build a one-stop “buy, use and local life” car services platform, while JD last year teamed with GAC and CATL to sell the Aion UT Super through an exclusive channel, signalling a full-step entry into vehicle retail.
The duel is the latest chapter in a relationship that has moved from benign coexistence to fierce overlap. Once parallel platforms — JD as an e-commerce heavyweight and Meituan as the local-life champion — began to tangle in earnest after last summer’s food-delivery battle, and their footprints now cross in groceries, electronics, travel, discount stores and merchant reviews.
The strategic logic behind this convergence is straightforward: platforms are fighting for high-frequency transactions and app “open rate”, not just one-off basket value. In China’s instant-retail era, the frequency with which users open an app and place small, quick orders has become as important as average order value, because habitual use creates long-term market share and pricing power.
That shift exposes JD’s structural weakness. The company built its brand on high-ticket, low-frequency purchases — appliances and 3C electronics — which do little to drive daily engagement. JD’s response has been to pursue “Meituanization”: building local services such as food delivery, travel and now car retail to push up app opens and stickiness.
But cars are a poor proxy for high-frequency engagement. The automotive value chain in China is long, decisions take months, and consumers prioritise brand trust, vehicle condition and aftersales. That is why previous internet incumbents who tried to “do cars” largely retreated or pivoted; the online traffic advantage can be blunted by consumers’ core concerns about dealerships and service.
Meituan’s approach to cars is lighter and data-driven. It leverages vast local-life traffic and location-based services to standardise dealer information online and close the loop from browsing through test drives to deposit payments, while planning to import its merchant-rating system to grade 4S dealers. For Meituan, selling cars is first about securing an entry into “car life” services — repairs, insurance, travel bookings and other aftermarket revenue streams that are expected to balloon in the coming years.
JD, by contrast, aims to use its supply-chain muscle to remake auto retail and underpin sales with its logistics and after-sales offerings. That vertical depth could work with the right execution, but it is costly and slow — especially when the immediate need is to increase daily engagement. The article’s provocative advice is that JD might gain more by copying Meituan’s high-frequency playbook directly — shared bikes, shared power banks or other daily-use services — rather than the capital- and time-intensive business of selling cars or expanding into travel.
For consumers and dealers the implications are mixed. Greater platform competition can lower prices and improve digital convenience, and both JD and Meituan are racing to capture the lucrative aftermarket that follows car purchases. But dealers will face intensified pressure from platforms seeking to standardise offline services and to monetise local data; brands may find their margins squeezed as platforms push integrated, platform-led offers.
For investors and regulators, the contest underscores how China’s big-tech platforms are reconfiguring around attention and transaction frequency rather than product categories. Meituan needs new revenue sources to fund local-life wars; JD needs sustained engagement to defend against Douyin and PDD’s incursions. The result is a broad convergence of services that will reshape where consumers go to buy not just food or gadgets, but mobility itself.