Dianping and Meituan seal merger
Print Edition
TENCENT-BACKED Dianping.com, a major restaurant rating website in China, and Alibaba-backed Meituan.com, a leading group buying website, agreed to merge into a new company to dominate services from restaurant deals to movie bookings.
The merger, backed by investors of the two websites, aims to stop price wars and improve margins.
Dianping and Meituan will keep their independent brands and operations while working closer with each other to enhance in-store and online interaction, the two companies said in a joint statement yesterday.
The as-yet-unnamed new company will focus on Online-to-Offline (O2O) market targeting tech-savvy consumers who increasingly use smartphones to seek information and deals on food and entertainment.
“Through the partnership we will bring the industry to a new level. We will be able to invest more energy and resources into improving and creating new businesses,” Wang Xing, CEO of Meituan, said in a statement.
Wang and Dianping’s CEO Zhang Tao will be co-chairman and co-CEO of the new company.
The tie-up poses a threat to Internet giant Baidu which has also invested about 20 billion yuan (US$3.1 billion) in the past three years into its own local services and group buying website Nuomi.com.
Responding to the deal, Baidu yesterday said Nuomi is developing quickly and gaining market share.
“We hope to team up with more innovative players to set up and improve China’s O2O environment and industry chain,” Baidu said in a statement.
Nuomi yesterday started a campaign to offer a total of 1 billion yuan cash incentives for users as it seeks to deepen its market position.
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