The Alibaba-backed Chinese group-discount website Meituan.com is now worth $7 billion after it received $700 million from unidentified investors, CEO Wang Xing told Bloomberg.
The site’s transaction volumes hit $7.4 billion (46 billion yuan) last year, Xing said, and that number is expected to hit $16.1 billion (100 billion yuan) this year; by 2020 that figure is anticipate to hit $160.8 billion (1 trillion yuan.)
“We will focus on developing business areas where many people use frequently,” said Xing . That will include hotels, food-delivery and movie tickets. Wang told Bloomberg that Meituan is still planning its IPO, but said that wasn’t a focus for the company during the next year or two.
According to a report from Bain & Co., Chinese e-commerce spending is expected to hit $530.8 billion (3.3 trillion yuan) this year. China is estimated to have more than 630 million Web users. Meituan is a Beijing-based site that allows local-business search, including user-generated reviews. Coupons and group discounts are also offered on the site. Meituan has operations in 1,000 cities and roughly 20 million active daily mobile users and is part-owned by Alibaba. The company’s sales on the site hit $305.6 million (1.9 billion yuan) in 2014; 90 percent of those transactions are said to be done through its mobile app. It’s largest competitor is Dianping.com, the Tencent-backed site that is similar to Yelp.
