美團大衆點評融資33億美元 Chinese online group Meituan Dianping raises $3.3bn

China’s largest food delivery and group buying company announced on Tuesday it has raised more than $3.3bn in one of the country’s largest internet funding rounds.

中國最大的送餐和團購公司美團-大衆點評(Meituan Dianping)週二宣佈融資逾33億美元，完成中國金額最大的互聯網融資回合之一。

The fundraising by Meituan Dianping, created in October by a merger, is the latest sign that money is still pouring into China’s “online to offline” sector despite the lack of concrete profits.

美團-大衆點評於去年10月合併後成立，此輪融資是最新的跡象，表明資金仍在涌入中國的“線上到線下”(O2O)領域，儘管該領域還未產生實在的利潤。

A Meituan Dianping spokesman confirmed the amount of the fundraising but would not say what valuation it represented. Tencent, the Chinese social media and gaming company, took a 20 per cent stake in Meituan last year and was understood to be aiming to increase it.

美團-大衆點評的一位發言人證實了融資金額，但沒有說這意味着公司的估值達到了多少。中國的社交媒體和遊戲公司騰訊(Tencent)去年收購了美團20%的股份，此前據信該公司有意增持股份。

The group, which functions as China’s equivalent of Yelp and Groupon combined, has previously been backed by Alibaba, but the Chinese ecommerce group said in November it planned to sell its stake in the company. However, an Alibaba spokesman declined to comment on the fate of its shareholding on Tuesday.

美團-大衆點評的功能相當於結合中國版的Yelp與Groupon，此前該公司曾受到阿里巴巴(Alibaba)的支持，但去年11月這家中國電商集團宣佈計劃出售所持股份。不過，阿里巴巴發言人週二拒絕對其所持股份的現況置評。

QQ Tech, a news portal owned by shareholder Tencent, posted a series of PowerPoint slides on Tuesday that were said to be from the company’s roadshow. They said that Meituan Dianping had been seeking to raise $3bn at a valuation of $18bn, up from a prior valuation of $15bn. A Meituan Dianping spokesperson declined to comment on the slides.

騰訊旗下新聞門戶網站騰訊科技(QQ Tech)週二發佈了一系列PPT幻燈片，據說是美團-大衆點評的路演資料。這些幻燈片顯示，騰訊美團-大衆點評尋求籌得30億美元，將公司估值從原先的150億美元提升到180億美元。美團-大衆點評的發言人拒絕對這些幻燈片置評。

The slides also stated that the company, which was referred to by a new name of “China Internet Plus”, would seek to list in two to three years. Total sales on the company’s platforms — known as gross merchandise value — were expected to be Rmb184bn ($28bn) in 2015 and rise above $1tn by 2019, according to the slides.

幻燈片還聲明，新名稱是“中國互聯網+”的該公司尋求在兩到三年後上市。幻燈片顯示，2015年該公司平臺的總銷售額——即總商品交易額(GMV)——預計達1840億元人民幣（合280億美元），2019年將提升到1萬億元人民幣以上。

Meituan’s merger with Dianping took place despite concerns that both companies were spending too much on subsidies and discounts. The “online to offline” sector, which includes food delivery, restaurant reviews and online hire of manicurists and transport, is the fastest growing part of China’s internet economy.

儘管有人擔心美團和大衆點評在補貼和折扣方面投入太多，但兩家公司還是完成了合併。“線上到線下”市場包含了送餐、餐館評論以及在線聘請美甲師以及租用交通工具，是中國互聯網經濟中增長最快的部分。

A report by HSBC bank in Hong Kong said that Chinese online to offline companies were all making heavy losses because they charged low commissions to attract merchants — often less than 5 per cent — and were subsidising users to boost market share.

匯豐(HSBC)香港的一份報告稱，中國的線上到線下公司全都嚴重虧損，爲了提升市場份額，它們不但收取低佣金來吸引商家——往往不到5%——還補貼用戶。

Nevertheless, the bank concluded that the potential upside was still large. It estimated that the total potential market for online to offline services in China is Rmb10tn ($1.6tn) a year, and said the online portion of online to offline revenues had surged 80 per cent year-on-year to Rmb300bn ($47bn) in the first half of 2015.

但匯豐的結論是該市場潛在上升空間仍然很大。據估計中國線上到線下服務潛在市場規模達每年10萬億元人民幣（合1.6萬億美元），並表示2015年上半年線上部分的收入同比劇增80%，至3000億元人民幣（合470億美元）。