When it was launched in 2010, Chinese entrepreneur Wang Xing’s app, Meituan, offered users ‘deals of the day’ discounts. Five years later, it merged with Dianping, a restaurant review site. Today, Meituan Dianping, in which tech giant Tencent owns a 19% stake, is the go-to choice in China for local consumer products and services, spanning everything from dining and delivery to travel and entertainment.

It offers a range of tech-enabled services, including food delivery, restaurant reservations, express deliveries, hotel and flight bookings. It also has interests in ride-hailing, fresh produce sales and bike-sharing. Food delivery remains its biggest business, accounting for about 43% of Meituan’s revenue in the quarter ended December 2021.

Meituan’s biggest rival Ele.me also started out as a food-delivery platform. Launched in 2008 by Mark Zhang and Jack Kang, it was acquired by Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba in 2018. Since then, Ele.me has diversified into tech-enabled grocery and consumer goods delivery as part of the Alibaba group’s New Retail push.