Meituan, a leading group-buying service in China, generated RMB46 billion (roughly US$7.4 bn) in gross merchandize volume in 2014, a 180% year-over-year increase.
More than 90% of the total volume was through mobile devices, up from 50ish% in previous year.
The company claims its market share has grown to more than 60% from around 50% a year ago. The number of cities Meituan covers has reached 1000. It claims it’s the largest group-buying service in 778 cities.
The registered and activated users have reached 200 million.
The company says its goal for this year is to reach RMB100 billion in gross merchandize volume.
Meituan and Dianping, another major player in China’s group-buying market, are reportedly planning for US IPO. There were rumors last month that both companies had raised a new massive round of funding.
While Meituan has been developing separate local lifestyle apps, such as CatEye(our translation) for movie ticket booking and a food delivery app, Dianping has been strengthening its existing platform.
Dianping invested in four restaurant management software developers and public WiFi solution provider Wiwide in 2014. The company launched recently a mobile advertising program, hoping advertising and marketing, instead of commissions from group-buying transactions, to be the major revenue source eventually.
As of the third quarter of 2014, Dianping, including rating & reviews and group-buying, had had 170 million monthly active users, 10 million merchants, and 42 million ratings & reviews (source in Chinese).
