Author | Liu Baodan From performance to market confidence, Meituan is walking out of a three-year low point, but Wang Xing is not stopping there - he has even bigger plans. Going overseas has become a must for Chinese companies. Meituan, which has been warming up for 8 years, has finally made up its mind to put going overseas on the agenda. Recently, Meituan began recruiting senior engineers for international silver enterprise direct connection. After the model was successful in the Hong Kong market, Meituan officially kicked off its overseas expansion, accelerated recruitment and put the first stop of the overseas expansion in Saudi Arabia in the Middle East. Going overseas is a critical turning point, which means that after more than ten years of capacity accumulation, Meituan has to export its local life capabilities to the world, which is as significant as the replication of TikTok by ByteDance. In the wave of Internet companies going overseas, Meituan went overseas later because local life patterns are more important than social, e-commerce and other industries. However, Wang Xing must make this move. Against the background of intensified domestic competition and the shrinking of community group buying, he must find a new growth story. On his entrepreneurial journey, Wang Xing is still determined to create a new business legend in this global adventure. A must-have question. Meituan has fought a beautiful takeaway battle in Hong Kong. On May 6, Measurable AI, a market research firm, released the latest data showing that by March 2024, according to the number of orders, KeeTa, the takeaway business of Meituan in Hong Kong, has a market share of 44%, rising to the largest takeaway platform in Hong Kong. However, Hong Kong is only a stopover for Meituan's overseas expansion, and Meituan has set its real meaning of going overseas in Saudi Arabia. Wall Street news learned that Meituan has been recruiting people around the direction of going overseas in the past two months. The positions include engineers, overseas human resources and operation experts, international payment and transaction product managers, mainly responsible for payments, employee management and related products in overseas markets. More importantly, the recruitment of local talents. More than a month ago, Meituan posted relevant recruitment information on LinkedIn and the Middle East recruitment platform Baye.com, with Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, as the place of work. From the city selection, Meituan did not choose the United States with a larger market space, nor did it choose Southeast Asia where culture and food are more similar, but chose Saudi Arabia. It can be seen that Meituan's overseas expansion strategy still has a heavy experimental component and is more cautious. Wang Xing is not fighting an unprepared battle. For this overseas expansion, Meituan has been planning for many years. As early as 2016, Wang Xing began to consider the issue of going overseas and visited Silicon Valley, Berlin, Israel, Jakarta and other places. In 2017, Meituan officially laid out overseas accommodation business, first connecting hotels in nearly 100 countries overseas to the Meituan application. At that time, the domestic and foreign takeaway wars were in full swing, and with Meituan's listing in Hong Kong in 2018, Wang Xing's overseas strategy was forced to be shelved. Since then, Meituan has also made a series of international investments, including Swiggy in India, Gojek in Indonesia, and Opay in Nigeria, involving food, taxis, payments and other fields, to prepare for going overseas. Along with the frequent news reports of Meituan's victory in Hong Kong, Meituan's overseas plan was finally brought to an unprecedented strategic height in 2024, and Wang Xing once again rushed to the forefront. In February, Meituan put the home business group, the in-store business group and other businesses into the core local business sector, and appointed Wang Putong as CEO, while Wang Xing personally took charge of overseas business, which ensured the landing of the overseas expansion strategy in the organizational structure. In fact, before the confirmation of the overseas expansion strategy, Wang Xing personally visited the Middle East last May and met with members of the Saudi royal family, laying the foundation for Meituan's layout in Saudi Arabia.

In today's weather is good. Today's weather is good.

After 10 years of development, JD.com's supermarket has reached unprecedented heights in terms of its internal importance. $JD-SW (09618.HK)$ The importance of JD.com's supermarket has reached unprecedented heights internally.

Recently, at the 10th anniversary celebration of jd.com supermarket, jd.com group announced a 10 billion yuan investment to support the billion-yuan agricultural subsidy project and the launch of new products for jd.com supermarket. In addition, jd.com will support the rapid growth of brands in operations and marketing.

Behind the 10 billion yuan investment, jd.com supermarket is ushering in new development opportunities. At the conference, jd.com group CEO Xu Ran said that jd.com supermarket is one of the important battlefields for jd.com to win in the next decade.

Xu Ran is very bullish on the development potential of the supermarket business. In her opinion, this is a very large market with ample space. "When I meet with investors and shareholders, I am often asked what will be the most important business growth driver for jd.com in the next few years, and every time without hesitation, my answer is jd.com supermarket."

"Personally, I firmly believe that given time, JD Supermarket will be able to recreate another JD." Xu Ran emphasized at the meeting.

In the current intense battle in the e-commerce market, JD Supermarket is undoubtedly one of the most important drivers for JD, a traditional e-commerce giant, to win more market share in this market reshuffle.

In 2013, JD Supermarket was born to serve the expanding demand for retail categories at JD. Over the past 10 years, JD Supermarket has relied on nearly 0.6 billion JD users and has accumulated over 100 billion orders. In recent years, as the consumption environment weakens, the supermarket category has shown good growth potential due to its strong essentiality.

According to JD's data, in the first half of this year, JD Supermarket has maintained rapid growth, with a 20% increase in new users, a 30% increase in order volume, and a high double-digit increase in revenue. As of the end of 2023, JD Supermarket has already seen more than 50 super brands with annual sales of over 1 billion yuan, as well as over 100 brands with sales of over 500 million yuan and over 500 brands with sales of over 100 million yuan.

At the Q2 earnings conference, JD stated that it will continue to focus on accelerating revenue growth in the second half of the year, aiming to exceed the growth rate of retail sales in China for the whole year. JD will continue its low-price strategy and provide users with more cost-effective products and services based on its strong supply chain capabilities.

This is also the way JD excels, and the supermarket business will be the focus of JD's strategic implementation.

Firstly, in terms of investment intensity, JD Supermarket has been identified as a strategic focus of the group and will receive billions of dollars in investment. Yao Yanzhong, Senior Vice President of JD Group and President of JD Retail's Hypermarket Business Group, revealed at the meeting that the procurement and sales staff of JD Supermarket will also double.

Secondly, in terms of strategy, Yao Yanzhong believes that in the face of fierce market competition, brands need to shift from chasing trends to improving internal capabilities, namely reconstructing the supply chain, rebuilding product strength, and reshaping value-for-money. JD Supermarket will also focus on these three core capabilities.

Regarding the reconstruction of the supply chain, Yao Yanzhong stated that JD Supermarket will use digital capabilities to reduce the duplication of brand warehouses and JD warehouses, and also place JD Logistics warehouses directly at the source of fresh produce to allow for direct delivery of fresh produce from the source to the whole country.

In terms of improving product competitiveness, JD Supermarket will use industry-leading product planning methodologies and insight tools to help brands quickly identify consumer pain points and demands, identify fast-growing and high-potential niche product segments, and create a large number of innovative and popular products.

Cost-effectiveness represents the assurance of quality at a low price. For this reason, JD Supermarket has established safety monitoring laboratories in 45 ASEAN warehouses nationwide, and has built the foundation of cost-effectiveness through three lines of defense: safety testing, genuine product identification, and on-site experience.

In fact, the implementation of the billion-yuan subsidy for agriculture and the launch of new products are the most important practical implementation of JD Supermarket's new strategy.

As an example, JD Supermarket will invest billions of resources in the next three years to promote a direct sales model for agricultural products through subsidies. This model can take into account quality, price, and service.

For example, JD Supermarket collaborates with Longzhou County in Guangxi and Three Squirrels to customize a new product, Hawaiian nuts. High-quality "Gui Hot 1" fresh fruits are picked and processed, and then directly supplied to JD Supermarket, with a price reduced to 19.9 yuan per kilogram. It is understood that to ensure quality, JD Supermarket has established a full-chain control mechanism covering pre-sales, during-sales, and after-sales, and also ensures quality through sampling inspections and other methods.

However, the traditional retail business has already become a fiercely competitive area for e-commerce platforms. JD Supermarket still faces many challenges if it wants to truly leverage its advantages.

In early 2023, Douyin Supermarket officially launched and gradually improved its supply chain construction capabilities. It also actively expanded offline by partnering with offline supermarkets. Its rival, Tmall Supermarket, is also making efforts. The company launched half-day delivery service in Hangzhou last year. At the end of last year, Meituan Buy introduced a formal name change to Xiao Xiang Supermarket and began to expand into all categories.

From category coverage to delivery efficiency, from online and offline integration to visiting the source factories and agricultural product bases, the competition in the super business between e-commerce platforms is becoming increasingly fierce, and a new round of competition is underway.

As a key piece for JD.com to win in the e-commerce market, JD Supermarket must go all out in the next step.