W23 - Meituan Q1 Report and WWDC
Three cognitive shocks 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 surprised me — the shift in consumer habits is faster than expected.
One curious thing: after Meituan launched its membership program, many people felt that consumer subsidies increased, yet Meituan's marketing expenditure ratio actually fell.
When supply, fulfillment, and consumption habits all undergo qualitative change simultaneously, an industry can follow an unexpected growth trajectory. A few examples from my own life: one weekend I spent 40 minutes preparing a fully satisfying meal using a combination of Xiaoxiang (grocery kit) and food delivery—fresh ingredients/quick-prep dishes/delivery. Yesterday's dinner was three takeout orders from different restaurants plus a whisky, abundant and cost-effective. Xiaoxiang supermarket has already become a daily necessity: a pack of sugar-free cola is about 30% cheaper than JD self-operated prices, and crucially it delivers within half an hour.
I recently discovered that last year’s WWDC Password app hides quite a lot, and I think it represents a trend: passwordless digital identity management. It supports passkeys—if you’ve used passkey login on the Elephant desktop client, you know it’s noticeably more convenient. It supports MFA and multi-factor authentication; when I logged into OpenAI last week, Password actually had this built-in, saving developers from having to implement MFA inside mobile apps—for example, Heju developed a dedicated security-code app to enable MFA. Password sharing allows secure sharing of credentials without the awkwardness of sharing plain text.
After a year since last year’s WWDC, the biggest surprise turned out to be Password; Apple Intelligence may have just been clickbait. Lower your expectations for tonight’s WWDC, haha.
Last updated