At Meituan’s recent AGM held in Beijing on 9 June 2024, founder and CEO Wang Xing addressed questions from shareholders covering a broad range of topics — from domestic competition to international expansion.
Among the most watched developments were Meituan’s progress in Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia and Brazil.
What follows is an excerpt of this meeting’s transcript, translated here into English.
Q: I’d like to ask a few questions about Meituan’s overseas business development. First, could you share some updates on the company’s recent progress in markets like Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia?
Also, I’ve seen quite a bit of online coverage about Meituan’s push into Brazil — could you elaborate on the strategic rationale behind that decision?
Secondly, when it comes to expanding into international markets, what key criteria does the management team use to assess and prioritize regions? Do we currently have a clear roadmap or framework for selecting future overseas markets?
Wang Xing: Keeta was launched in Hong Kong in May 2023. In less than a year, we became number one in terms of order volume. Now in 2025, we are firmly the market leader in Hong Kong’s food delivery sector — both by order volume and total GTV. Our restaurant partnerships are also expanding steadily.
In terms of market dynamics, on April 7 2025, one of the two foreign competitors — the UK-based Deliveroo — announced its exit from the Hong Kong market. As of now, Keeta is the number one player in Hong Kong. The second is Foodpanda, owned by Germany’s Delivery Hero.
As for Saudi Arabia, we launched operations there in September last year. Our initial test began on September 9 in a small city near Riyadh (the relationship between the two cities is similar to the relationship between Beijing and Langfang, a satellite city just outside Beijing). One month later, on October 9, we officially launched in Riyadh. Between late December and early January, we continued expanding into other cities. As of now, Keeta has entered 9 cities across Saudi Arabia, essentially covering all cities with populations over one million.
Our performance in Saudi Arabia has also been quite encouraging. We are confident that we are already among the top three food delivery platforms in the country. We don’t want to overstate things, as conditions are still evolving, but we’re certainly in the top three — and quite possibly in second place.
We view Saudi Arabia as our foothold for the broader Gulf and Middle East region. If things go well there, we will consider further expansion into other Gulf countries, including the UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait — markets that share similar cultural and economic profiles: Arab nations with high purchasing power and comparable market characteristics.
Our future expansion into Brazil has drawn more attention recently, particularly after President Lula visited China last month and signed an investment memorandum with us, in which we plan to invest USD 1 billion over the next five years to develop Meituan’s business in Brazil.
Brazil is arguably the farthest country from us — it’s on the other side of the world. A flight from Beijing to São Paulo takes at least 25 hours. But we’re not deterred by the distance. We believe Brazil is a promising market, and for Chinese companies, a relatively trustworthy choice.
That judgment takes into account not just market size or average consumer spending, but also whether a company (given its origin) can sustainably operate there in the long run. In this respect, China and Brazil maintain a long-term strategic partnership, with frequent high-level exchanges. This provides a solid foundation, which is generally positive for Chinese businesses in Brazil.
Looking at Brazil more fundamentally, it is a large economy — one of the original BRICS countries. By land area, Brazil is the fifth-largest country in the world; by population, seventh; and by GDP, around ninth. Its food delivery market is well developed — currently ranked fifth in the world. So we believe Brazil holds strong potential.
In addition, Brazil has relatively stable trade and economic ties with China. That reinforces our confidence in the market. However, we are not rushing in. First, Brazil is very far away; and secondly, the language and culture are vastly different. Brazil, as a major country, also has strong homegrown tech companies.
In all, the market is relatively open. Western, Japanese, and Chinese brands are all actively present. If you pay attention, you’ll notice that nearly all major Chinese internet firms already have a presence in Brazil — including Shein, Temu, Kuaishou, Didi, and Chinese smartphone, home appliance, and even automotive brands. Over time, we expect to see more collaboration, helping raise the recognition and reputation of Chinese companies in Brazil.
In the long run, we’ve repeatedly emphasized that Meituan is a global company rooted in China. We’ve seen that the demand for food delivery and on-demand retail exists not only in China, but across the world — whether in countries with high or low per capita GDP.
We firmly believe our mission — “help people eat better, live better” — is applicable not only to people in China, but also to consumers in all global markets.
That said, when operating abroad, we place even greater emphasis on building a healthy and sustainable ecosystem. There are already many issues and challenges to solve in the domestic market, but these issues can be even more sensitive overseas and require special attention.
This is something we are particularly mindful of when expanding internationally: on the one hand, we need to move fast; on the other, we must remain steady and keep pace appropriately. That’s the update we can share for now regarding Keeta.
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