HK Movers | Meituan Gains 3% as Analysts Say Food Delivery Subsidies Have Become More Rational

Meituan’s stock in Hong Kong rose more than 3%, bringing its cumulative gain for the week to over 12%.

On the news front, Meituan’s international food delivery brand, Keeta, recently officially launched operations in Kuwait, making it the third Middle Eastern Gulf market for Keeta after Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Following a successful rollout in Saudi Arabia over the past year, Keeta has accelerated its expansion across the Middle East. In August, Keeta launched in Qatar, and less than a month later, it officially entered Kuwait. Meituan is thus speeding up the development of an internationally “multi-country coordinated” growth model.

According to a research report by Shenwan Hongyuan, in July, the State Administration for Market Regulation held talks with three major platforms, emphasizing the need to standardize promotions and maintain fair competition. As a result, platform subsidy strategies have become more rational. Meituan, Taobao, and JD.com have each launched differentiated initiatives—such as “Pinhao Fan,” “Baopin Tuan,” and “Qixian Xiaochu”—to improve structural efficiency, reduce speculative order volume, and move toward sustainable long-term growth. Guangfa Securities noted that in Q3 and Q4, the e-commerce sector is expected to remain under pressure from competition with food delivery platforms, potentially weighing on performance. In the long term, if both sides reduce subsidy intensity, Meituan and Alibaba are expected to reach a profit inflection point.