Meituan's huge loss of over 23 billion yuan actually met expectations.

On February 13, Meituan issued a profit warning, forecasting a shift from profit to loss in 2025, with a full-year net loss exceeding 23 billion yuan.

Considering Meituan still boasted a net profit of 35.8 billion yuan in 2024, the profit side has seen a dramatic reversal of nearly 60 billion yuan between the inflow and outflow.

All this happened roughly a year after JD.com announced the launch of its food delivery service on February 11, 2025.

We still remember the video of Brother Dong personally taking command and toasting with great ambition, which went viral across the internet.

Although JD's food delivery service eventually faded in prominence due to the strong entry of Taobao's flash sales, it must be said that Brother Dong's few moves ignited the seemingly calm food delivery market; this move was on another level.

History is always strikingly similar, yet fundamentally different.

Recall the period between 2023 and 2024, when the same script played out: JD fired the first shot with a 10-billion-yuan subsidy, followed closely by Alibaba and Douyin, with the entire industry attempting to encircle and eliminate Pinduoduo's low-price advantage.

That hunt didn't create much of a splash; instead, it allowed Pinduoduo's cash flow to grow larger and larger, ultimately ending without a resolution.

Now, Pinduoduo's cash reserves have risen, with a size of nearly 60 billion US dollars, almost enough to buy the entire Meituan, which is truly lamentable.

However, when the 2025 script repeats itself, with Meituan becoming the target of encirclement, the situation is entirely different.

Faced with the terrifying cash cows of e-commerce giants, the laborious business model of food delivery appears stretched thin, not on the same scale.

Once the market returns to a subsidy war, even the most extreme operational efficiency is meaningless; Meituan's massive losses today were actually already anticipated.

The business models of different companies were originally like well water not interfering with river water.

But once they step on each other's boundaries and enter each other's space, the collision of two different dimensions of business models makes the superior one immediately apparent, exposing the brutality of business.

Clearly, Alibaba gained the upper hand in 2025 and intends to press its advantage in 2026, further integrating its e-commerce business through instant retail.

'Everything can be delivered' was Meituan's brand perception in the past; obviously, Taobao wants to seize this perception, and that's the most worrying part.

During the optimistic times, Meituan investors didn't take Alibaba seriously at all. These days, after reading many articles predicting Meituan's decline, it seems Meituan has no chance of winning again.

I think nothing has actually changed; only the environment has changed, with more and stronger competitors.

The market has become more efficient; it remains to be seen whether Meituan can withstand the pressure once more and become stronger when facing stronger opponents.

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