# food delivery
Latest news and articles about food delivery
Total: 12 articles found
Meituan Rebuts Viral “Peking University Grad Delivering Food” Clip, Urges Caution Over Credential Clickbait
Meituan has disputed a viral clip claiming a Peking University graduate was working as a food-delivery rider, saying platform records show only a brief registration and five deliveries. The company warned against using academic labels for clicks and noted it lacks mechanisms to verify riders’ education, highlighting tensions between credential narratives and the realities of China’s large gig-economy workforce.
Why China’s Takeaway Prices Are Rising Even as Platforms Subsidise Orders
China’s food‑delivery subsidy war is squeezing restaurant margins: platforms run aggressive promotions to retain users while shifting costs onto merchants through fees, required discounts and business‑manager interventions. The dynamic is forcing many eateries to raise prices or opt out of promotions, prompting regulatory scrutiny and raising questions about the sustainability of current platform strategies.
JD’s Growth Windfall, Profit Hangover: How an Aggressive Push into Food Delivery Blew a Hole in 2025 Results
JD.com grew revenue to RMB1.3 trillion in 2025 but saw operating profit collapse as it spent heavily to build a food‑delivery and local‑services business. The new businesses posted RMB46.6 billion in losses for the year, driven by steep increases in marketing and fulfilment costs, even as core retail and JD Health showed pockets of resilience. Management says spending will ease if competition stabilises, but the company must prove it can convert strategic subsidiaries into independent, high‑quality profits to win back investor confidence.
JD’s Big Bet on Food Delivery: Revenue Gains, Profit Pain and a High‑stakes Gamble for Market Share
JD.com grew revenue to ¥1.3 trillion in 2025 but saw operating profit collapse and free cash flow shrink sharply as losses from new businesses, especially food delivery, ballooned. Management says investment intensity could ease in 2026 if competition stabilises, but the company must show that its retail margins and newly listed subsidiaries can deliver independent, durable profits.
Beijing Forces Delivery Apps to Clean Up ‘Ghost’ Takeaways: New Rules Make Platforms the Gatekeepers
China will require food-delivery platforms to perform substantive licence checks, verify merchant addresses at least every six months, and display vendor credentials publicly, with new rules taking effect June 1. The measures, aimed at eliminating “ghost” takeout operators, embed platforms in the e-commerce regulatory framework and impose steeper fines to strengthen food-safety oversight.
China’s New Year’s Eve Moves Online: Delivery Platforms Vie for Dinner Orders as Profitability Sours
China’s major delivery platforms have turned Lunar New Year’s Eve meals into a strategic instant-retail scenario, each adopting different approaches: JD focuses on quality and service, Taobao on targeted subsidies, and Meituan on steady platform integration. Operational improvements and riders’ willingness to work through the holiday are underpinning a permanent expansion of festival delivery, even as profitability pressures force more nuanced competition.
Delivering Reunion: How China’s New Year Eve Dinners Became a Booming Delivery Market
Search interest for delivered and takeaway New Year’s Eve dinners in China surged in early February, with several hundred-percent jumps across related search terms. Restaurants and platforms are responding with dedicated delivery services, extended logistics into rural areas and new seasonal product offerings, reshaping how families consume the Spring Festival reunion meal.
From TikTok Refugees to Transformer Shortages: Ten Unexpected Business Shocks That Defined China in 2025
A string of unexpected developments in 2025—from TikTok users migrating to Xiaohongshu, to a transformer shortage limiting AI scalability—upended Chinese business. The year highlighted how geopolitics, surging technological demand and shifting consumer culture can swiftly elevate winners and expose strategic weaknesses.
Delivery Repackages the Reunion: Chinese New Year ‘Family Dinner’ Goes Digital
Search interest in delivered and takeaway reunion dinners spiked sharply ahead of this year’s Spring Festival, prompting restaurants and platforms to scale delivery services into urban and rural areas. The shift points to a significant reconfiguration of a core cultural ritual, with implications for restaurants, logistics providers and environmental and labour concerns.
Chinese Cities Move to Curb ‘Involution’ in Food-Delivery Price Wars Ahead of Spring Festival
Several Chinese municipal market regulators have ordered food-delivery platforms to halt low-price, subsidy-driven “involution” ahead of the Spring Festival, banning predatory subsidies, ‘‘choose-one’’ exclusivity, data-based price discrimination and coercive promotional tactics. The measures aim to protect small merchants, restore market order during a high-demand period, and push platforms to shift from capital-driven growth to value creation.
From TikTok Fallout to a Billion‑Yuan Food‑Delivery Bloodbath: China’s Top Commercial Surprises of 2025
China’s 2025 commercial surprises — from the overseas success of Xiaohongshu and the blockbuster Nezha sequel to Pop Mart’s meteoric rise, Starbucks’ partial China JV and a destructive food‑delivery subsidy war — reveal a market driven by cultural momentum, geopolitical spillovers and ruthless competition. These events expose both opportunity for scalable consumer IP and persistent structural risks in margins, supply chains and valuation dynamics.
Alibaba’s Taobao Flash Sale Pulls Back on Subsidies — The 2026 Food-Delivery Fight Turns Toward Profits
Taobao Flash Sale has quietly increased commissions and reshaped coupon rules for merchants, signalling a shift from subsidy-driven growth to monetisation. The changes reflect both platform-level unit-economics pressure and Alibaba’s need to reallocate capital toward costly AI infrastructure, and they could reshape merchant economics and consumer pricing over time.