Meituan Dianping: The unicorn that might one day become China’s next ten-bagger

There is a new entrant in China’s tech sector and its name is Meituan Dianping. Find out how the leading e-commerce platform for services is shaping the country’s Internet landscape and why we think it has the potential to become China’s next ten-bagger.

  • |
  • Published on 18 Dec 2019

Meituan Dianping: The unicorn that might one day become China’s next ten-bagger | Open a FREE FSM account and manage all your investments conveniently in ONE place

Image Credits: digitalcrew

Meituan Dianping is China’s leading e-commerce platform for services, offering over 200 different types of services across more than 2,800 counties in China. 
The company just posted its second consecutive quarterly operating profit of RMB 1.4 billion, compared to a loss of RMB 3.5 billion for the same period a year ago.
Going forward, Meituan’s revenue is estimated to grow at approximately 30% each year from now till 2022 driven by the swelling demand for online consumer services.
Balance sheet is far from stretched, low use of debt should help the company survive tough times should it encounter any. 
We value Meituan Dianping at HKD 124, which translates to an upside potential of 21% based on its last closing price of HKD 102.3 on as of 16 Dec 2019. 

Since the beginning of the 21st century, China’s Internet sector has been dominated by three tech giants – Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU), Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) and Tencent (HKEX:0700). Collectively known by the acronym BAT, the trio controls just about every aspect of China’s Internet space, from e-commerce to social media. Now, a new wave of Chinese Internet companies, led by Meituan Dianping (HKEX:3690) are about to challenge their dominance.

China’s leading one-stop life services platform

Prior to their merger, Meituan and Dianping were two separate companies. Meituan started out as a group buying website, offering local deals to consumers before subsequently launching other services, such as food delivery and movie ticketing. Dianping, on the other hand, was heavily focused on reviews and ratings, generated by its large base of active users. In 2015, the two companies decided to merge into a single entity under the name Meituan Dianping.

Today, Meituan operates a one-stop daily life services platform. Dubbed as the “Amazon of services”, Meituan’s super app offers almost everything under the sun, from food delivery to travel booking and even bike sharing. As of 2018, Meituan has more than 200 different services listed on its platform, and serves over 2,800 counties in China, making it the country’s leading e-commerce platform for services (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Meituan has greatly expanded its breadth of service offerings over the years 


Food delivery is the company’s bread and butter 

While the company dabbles in many areas of the service industry, it has chosen to adopt the “Food + Platform” strategy, focusing on food delivery as its core business, while at the same time investing in new ideas such as bike sharing and ride hailing, with the end goal of building an all-in-one consumption app capable of fulfilling a consumer’s every need. 

In its filings, Meituan reports its revenue under three business segments – food delivery; in-store, hotel & travel; new initiatives and others. Unsurprisingly, food delivery is the company’s bread and butter, accounting for nearly 60% of the total revenue earned in 3Q19 (Figure 2). Meituan is also the leader in China’s food delivery space, with a market share of approximately 65% as of 3Q19 according to data published by Trustdata.

Figure 2: Revenue from food delivery segment accounts for nearly 60% of total revenue 


Right behind food delivery, the in-store, hotel & travel segment is Meituan’s second largest, accounting for 22% of its revenue. This segment helps to connect brick-and-mortar businesses with online consumers by providing merchants with a platform to list their services. Through Meituan’s app, consumers from all around the world can then browse and discover merchants, make reservations, purchase tickets and even leave reviews. 

Lastly, the new initiatives segment consists of early-stage ideas that the company believes has the potential to succeed and is currently exploring. Examples of such ideas include bike sharing and ride hailing. Meituan generates revenue in three ways – commissions, online marketing services, and other services and sales, with commissions being the primary method at the moment.

Exceptional revenue and earnings growth

Barely four years after the merger, Meituan is already profitable. In 3Q19, the company posted its second consecutive quarterly operating profit of RMB 1.4 billion, compared to a loss of RMB 3.5 billion for the same period a year ago (Figure 3). At the same time, its quarterly revenue rose 44% year-on-year, reaching a high of RMB 27.5 billion, led by strong growth across all its business segments.

Figure 3: Meituan achieved its second consecutive quarterly operating profit


Since 2015, Meituan’s yearly revenue has expanded by more than 16-fold in a matter of three years, an indication of the sheer size of China’s consumer services market and how underserved it is. Moving forward, Meituan is widely anticipated to continue its stellar performance, with revenue expected to grow at a rate of approximately 30% each year over the next four years (Figure 4). With such impressive numbers, Meituan certainly ranks among China’s fastest-growing tech companies of this decade. 

Figure 4: Revenue growth expected to persist as demand for online consumer services swells 


Well-positioned to benefit from the increasingly digitalised consumption habits in China

Meituan’s success thus far is partly due to the fact that over the past few years, there has been a considerable shift in the consumption habits of the Chinese population. In stark contrast to the past, consumption in China today has become increasingly digitalised as consumers, especially those from the younger generation, are more willing to pay for the convenience of on-demand services, such as food delivery.

This has contributed to the steady rise in China’s online consumer services market, which grew from a mere 4% to nearly 20% of the total consumer services market’s gross transaction value (GTV) in a span of five years (Figure 5). Going forward, we expect the online consumer services market to account for an even larger share of the total consumer services market, propelled by the supercharged growth in the country’s Internet usage.

Figure 5: GTV of the online consumer services market now accounts for nearly a fifth of the total consumer market’s GTV


China’s Internet usage has been ballooning at an exponential pace over the recent years. Not only are there more Internet users in China, existing users are also spending more time online. Since 2008, China’s Internet population has been expanding at a rate of approximately 10% each year. Today, China has more than 800 million active internet users (Figure 6), far greater than the total population of every other country except India. 

Even with 800 million active Internet users, China’s Internet penetration rate of 57% still lags behind most developed markets, where penetration rates can range from anywhere between 85-95%. As the country converges towards developed market standards, the number of Internet users should continue to multiply, a positive for companies such as Meituan, which rely heavily on the Internet and its users to conduct business. 

Figure 6: China’s fast-growing pool of Internet users is a powerful catalyst for Internet companies like Meituan


Apart from enlarging Meituan’s pool of potential customers, the growing number of Internet users also has a knock-on effect throughout the rest of the services industry. Merchants, many of whom have become more attuned to the idea of digital consumption, have begun to show greater interest in marketing their services online. This is evident in the case of Meituan, with the company seeing a three-fold increase in the number of merchants on its platform, from just two million in 2015, to nearly six million in 2018 (Figure 7).

Meituan benefits from having a larger number of merchants on board its platform in a few ways. First, it receives more revenue from marketing and platform services. Second, the wider range of service offerings should help to enhance the stickiness of its platform and lead to better customer retention.

Figure 7: Number of active merchants on Meituan has tripled in just three years


Huge potential for organic growth from cross-selling and seamless integration with WeChat

With all its services listed on a single platform, Meituan has been able to rapidly expand by leveraging on its market leading position in high frequency services, such as food delivery, to cross-sell low frequency services from its other business segments. 

The company has demonstrated a track record of success with this strategy, with over 80% of its new hotel-booking customers and 74% of its lifestyle services customers converted from the food delivery segment in 2017. Even in 2019, the management acknowledges that the rising number of users for its food delivery services still continues to be a source of revenue growth for the other segments. 

Furthermore, because of the backing it receives from Tencent, Meituan is able to integrate seamlessly with the WeChat app through its mini-program. Mini-programs are basically a smaller version of the native app that users can access without having to leave WeChat. By creating its own mini-program, Meituan has made itself accessible to more than 1 billion people who use WeChat daily, beefing up its potential customer base. 

Key investment risks

In China’s food delivery industry, Meituan faces stiff competition from Ele.me, the second largest player with a market share of 27%. Ele.me is a subsidiary of e-commerce giant Alibaba, which recently completed a secondary listing in Hong Kong. Alibaba (HKEX:9988) stated in its filings that the company will invest part of the proceeds from the IPO to grow their consumer service offerings, which includes Ele.me.

Be that as it may, given the size of China’s food delivery market and the rate at which it is growing, we believe that there is room for both companies to co-exist and still be profitable, as Meituan has shown over the past two quarters. On top of that, Meituan is in a much better position as it has been gaining market share relative to Ele.me over the past few quarters.

The possibility of a merger between the two competitors is also on the cards, just like in the ride-hailing industry where the two largest players at the time, Didi and Kuaidi merged in 2015 to form Didi Chuxing. Fast forward to today, Didi Chuxing is essentially a monopoly controlling roughly 90% of China’s ride hailing market. Interestingly, prior to the merger Didi and Kuaidi was also backed by Tencent and Alibaba respectively.

Furthermore, because a part of Meituan’s service offerings falls into the consumer discretionary segment, it may be negatively affected by adverse changes in China’s economy, such as a recession, which could dampen consumer confidence and lead to a reduction in discretionary spending. However, Meituan’s healthy balance sheet with a net debt-to-equity ratio of -10.5% should allow it to tide through tough times better than its more leveraged peers. 

A likely candidate to become China’s next Ten-Bagger

Using the sum-of-the-parts valuation methodology, we estimate the intrinsic value of Meituan Dianping (HKEX:3690) to be approximately HKD 124 per share, which represents an upside of around 21% as of 16 Dec 2019. Our assumptions are laid out below.

For the food delivery segment, we applied a PE multiple of 28X, a premium over its peers to account for its market leading position and the huge growth potential of China’s burgeoning food delivery market.

For the in-store, hotel & travel segment, we assigned a PE multiple of 25X, higher than its closest competitor Trip.com (NASDAQ:TCOM) to account for its larger market share and ability to cross-sell travel services to customers from its other segments.

For the new initiatives segment, we took the conservative approach and assigned a value of zero for the time being, as many of these initiatives are still in the early stages of development and are not yet profitable. That being said, we will keep a close eye on this segment and make adjustments should things change in the future.

We applied a conglomerate discount of 10% to the estimated total fair value of the firm before arriving at the target price per share. The discount is lower than normal because Meituan’s business segments are not completely unrelated and the firm should be able to achieve significant synergies across its various business segments.

Table 1: Sum of the parts valuation for Meituan Dianping

Food Delivery

2020E Food Delivery EBIT (CNY millions)

13,120

PE Multiple (X)

28X

Estimated Fair Value (CNY millions)

367,360

In-store / hotel, Travel

2020E In-store / hotel EBIT (CNY millions)

14,010

PE Multiple (X)

25X

Estimated Fair Value (CNY millions)

350,250

Estimated Total Fair Value of Meituan after discount (HKD)

718,378

Shares Outstanding (millions)

5804

Estimated Fair Value Per Share

HKD 123.8

Source: Company Data, iFAST Estimates

Conglomerate discount, currency conversion assumptions apply


Overall, we think that Meituan Dianping (HKEX:3690) is certainly a company worth paying attention to for investors looking to find China’s next tech giant. Its dominant position and healthy balance sheet, coupled with China’s growing demand for online services, are a few of the many reasons why we believe Meituan has the potential to do well in the future. If it plays its cards right, Meituan might one day become China’s next ten-bagger.

Table 2: Strong earnings growth expected for Meituan as margins continue to improve

2018

2019

2020

2021

PE Ratio (X)

-

331.3

77.2

35.9

Earnings Growth

-

-

328.0%

130.3%

EPS (CNY)

-

0.28

1.19

2.56

Source: Bloomberg, iFAST Compilations


If you have enjoyed this article we have good news for you. Over the next few weeks we will be publishing more articles related to Meituan, where we will do a deep-dive into each of its individual business segments so be sure to keep a lookout for them!



Declaration:

For specific disclosure, at the time of publication of this report, IFPL (via its connected and associated entities) and the analyst who produced this report hold a NIL position in the abovementioned securities

All materials and contents found in this site are strictly for general circulation and informational purposes only and should not be considered as an offer, or solicitation, to deal in any of the funds or products found/identified in this site. While iFAST Financial Pte Ltd ("IFPL") has tried to provide accurate and timely information, there may be inadvertent delays, omissions, technical or factual inaccuracies and typographical errors. Any opinion or estimate contained in this report is made on a general basis and neither IFPL nor any of its servants or agents have given any consideration to nor have they or any of them made any investigation of the investment objective, financial situation or particular need of any user or reader, any specific person or group of persons. You should consider carefully if the products you are going to purchase are suitable for your investment objective, investment experience, risk tolerance and other personal circumstances. If you are uncertain about the suitability of the investment product, please seek advice from a financial adviser, before making a decision to purchase the investment product. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. The value of the investment products and the income from them may fall as well as rise. Opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. In respect of any matters arising from, or in connection with the said research analyses or research reports, recipients of the report are to contact IFPL at 10 Collyer Quay, #26-01 Ocean Financial Centre Building, Singapore 049315, or by telephone at +65 6557 2853. Where the report contains research analyses or research reports from a foreign research house and if the recipient of such research analyses or research reports is not an accredited investor, expert investor, institutional investor or an ex-accredited investor, IFPL accepts legal responsibility for the contents of such analyses or reports to such persons only to the extent as required by law. Please note that only certain security(ies) herein are available to all investors, while the rest are only available for certain persons to invest in, such as Accredited Investors (as defined in the Securities and Futures Act) or one who invests at least S$200,000 (or its equivalent currency) per transaction. To qualify as an Accredited Investor, one needs to submit a declaration form and certain relevant supporting documents, according to iFAST’s prevailing policies and procedures.

Please read our full disclaimers on the website at ( https://secure.fundsupermart.com/fsmone/policies/328125/investment-account-terms-&-conditions).

iFAST Financial Pte Ltd (IFPL) (registered address: 10 Collyer Quay #26-01 Ocean Financial Centre Singapore 049315, Telephone: 6557 2000) holds the Financial Advisers Licence issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore ('MAS') to conduct regulated activities of advising on securities, marketing of collective investment schemes and arranging of any contract of insurance in respect of life policies, other than a contract of reinsurance and the Capital Markets Services Licence issued by the MAS to conduct regulated activities of dealing in securities and providing custodial services for securities. While IFPL has made every effort to ensure the independence of the report's contents, IFPL's nature of business is such that IFPL and its connected and associated entities together with their respective directors, officers and staff may be involved in providing dealing or investment-related services in the abovementioned securities, and have taken or may take positions in the securities mentioned in this report, and may also act as the principal for any buy or sell trades.

Ways to Invest with FSM Global
Why FSM Global
Don't have an account with us?
Open an account here
Need Financial Advice?
Make an appointment

We use cookies If you close this message or continue to use this site, you will consent to the use of Cookies, unless you choose to disable them. Click on our Privacy Policy to understand more.