Meituan Dianping announced its financial results for the three months ended September 30, 2019. Total revenues for the third quarter increased by 44.1% to RMB 27.5 billion from RMB 19.1 billion last year. Revenues increased across all business segments.
Cost of revenues for in-store, hotel & travel businesses increased by 68.4% to RMB 704.9 million for the third quarter of 2019 from RMB 418.6 million for the same period of 2018.
Gross profit increased by 109.8% to RMB 9.6 billion. Selling and marketing expenses as a percentage of total revenues decreased to 20.4% from 24.2% last year. Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net profit were RMB 2.3 billion and RMB 1.9 billion, respectively.
Operating highlights
Total Gross Transaction Volume (GTV) grew by 33.6% to RMB 194.6 billion from RMB 145.7 billion for the same period of 2018.
Annual Transacting Users in the twelve months ended September 30, 2019 grew by 14.0% to 435.8 million from 382.3 million in the twelve months ended September 30, 2018.
In-store, hotel & travel
The growth of GTV of in-store, hotel & travel businesses accelerated for the third quarter of 2019, growing by 29.4% to RMB 63.9 billion for the third quarter of 2019 from RMB 49.3 billion in the same period of 2018. Monetization Rate increased to 9.7% from 9.0% year-over-year.
Revenues from in-store, hotel & travel businesses increased by 39.3% to RMB 6.2 billion for the third quarter of 2019 from RMB 4.4 billion in the same period of 2018. Gross profit from in-store, hotel & travel businesses increased to RMB 5.5 billion for the third quarter of 2019 from RMB 4.0 billion in the same period of 2018, while gross margin slightly declined to 88.6% from 90.6% year-over-year, but remained flat quarter-over-quarter.
The number of domestic room nights consumed for the third quarter of 2019 increased by 44.4% year-over-year, surpassing 100 million quarterly room nights for the first time and the average daily rate per room night also experienced a steady year-over-year increase.
The company continued to develop mutually beneficial collaborations with more hotels in lower-tier cities and enhanced efforts on cross-selling hotel booking services to existing users for the third quarter of 2019, which led to the accelerated growth of domestic room nights.
The “Hotel+X” campaign launched in April 2019 continued to stimulate the growth of high-end hotel booking business and help high-end hotels promote their non-lodging services, such as restaurants, wedding venues, spa and gyms, thereby further substantiating their revenue streams. As a result, revenue contribution from high-end hotels further increased year-over-year for the third quarter of 2019.
Operating profit for the third quarter of 2019 was RMB 1.4 billion, compared to an operating loss of RMB 3.5 billion for the same period of 2018. Profit for the third quarter was RMB 1.3 billion, compared to a loss of RMB 83.3 billion for the third quarter of 2018.
The company had cash and cash equivalents of RMB 15.1 billion and short-term investments of RMB 46.1 billion as of September 30, 2019.
