W23 - Meituan Q1 Earnings and WWDC
Three eye-opening insights from the first-quarter report.
A new flash-sale brand launched and the flash-sale homepage DAU peak rose to nearly 6.5 million. Among users, those born after 1995 account for more than half. That proportion struck me as quite shocking — the shift in consumption habits is faster than I expected.
One curious thing: after Meituan introduced its membership program, many people felt that consumer subsidies increased, yet Meituan's marketing spend ratio actually fell.
When supply, fulfillment, and consumer habits all undergo qualitative changes at the same time, an industry can follow an unexpected growth trajectory. A few examples from my daily life: one weekend I spent 40 minutes and produced a fully satisfying meal using a combination of Xiaoxiang (grocery) + takeout — fresh ingredients/quick-prep dishes/delivery. Last night’s dinner was takeout from three different restaurants plus a Didi-style shared ride — abundant and cost-effective. Xiaoxiang supermarket has already become a necessary part of daily life: a pack of sugar-free cola is 30% cheaper than JD.com’s self-operated price, and crucially it delivers within half an hour.
I recently discovered that the Password app Apple introduced at last year’s WWDC contains a lot of features I think point to a trend: passwordless digital identity management. It supports passkeys — if you’ve used passkey login on the DaXiang desktop client, you know it’s much more convenient. It supports MFA and multi-factor authentication — last week when I logged into OpenAI, I found Password even had this built in, saving developers from having to support MFA inside mobile apps (for example, HeJu developed a separate secure-code app to implement MFA). Password sharing: this feature lets you share credentials securely without the awkwardness of sending plaintext.
After a year since last year’s WWDC, the biggest surprise turned out to be Password; Apple Intelligence feels more like a marketing headline. Lower your expectations for tonight’s WWDC, haha.
Last updated