HONG KONG (Nikkei Markets) -- China's Meituan Dianping on Thursday reported a narrower loss in the first quarter, as the Chinese food-delivery company's revenue jumped on higher orders and improvement in average value per order.
Net loss for the quarter ended March stood at 1.43 billion yuan ($207.21 million), compared with a loss of 21.06 billion yuan a year ago, the company said in an exchange filing. Revenue surged 70.1% to 19.17 billion yuan.
The number of food delivery orders increased by 35.8% to 1.7 billion, while average value per order of food delivery business improved by 2.1% year-over-year during the quarter, it said.
Meituan, which offers a range of services including food delivery, local listings and online bookings, said gross transactions volume rose 27.9% to 138.4 billion yuan as the number of transacting users and their purchasing frequency increased.
Cost of revenue rose nearly 75% to 14.10 billion yuan in the quarter owing to higher food delivery rider costs, it added.
Food delivery accounts for nearly 55.8% of the company's revenue.
The company, backed by Tencent Holdings, is locked in a high-stakes battle for market share with Alibaba Group Holding-owned Ele.me service and SoftBank-backed ride-hailing and delivery company Didi Chuxing.
The company had a leading 64.1% share of the food-delivery market in China as of February, according to numbers compiled by DCCI Data Center of China Internet, a research company.
