Photo/Shetuwang

Jan. 15 (NBD) -- China's largest on-demand food delivery firm, Meituan Dianping ("Meituan"), is likely setting sights on the gaming sector as reports have it that the company is hiring gaming talents, including testing engineers, game planners, game graphic designers, and senior game development engineers. 

This comes as no surprise since the initial group-buying site has ventured into a number of sectors to date, including food delivery, tourism, mobility, convenience store, and power bank sharing fields.  

When reached by NBD, a source with Meituan declined to comment. But on a social media platform, Wang Huiwen, co-founder and senior vice president of the lifestyle service platform, said, "I'm just giving it a shot. Don't overthink it."

The recruitment page shows Meituan will launch mini games for leisure or simulation games. Some senior game player speculated that the company would also introduce some mobile games such as role-playing ones. 

Meituan's founder and CEO Wang Xing once said opportunities would go smaller in the later stage of technological revolution, and business integration would be a great way for capitalizing opportunities. At that time, companies with a portfolio of diverse business offerings will have an edge over those with a narrow focus. 

As is known to all, games serve as the best way of monetizing user traffic. Wechat's mini game business is just a case in point.

Data revealed at WeChat Open Class last Wednesday showed that WeChat's mini games have garnered more than 400 million of monthly active users to date, equivalent to the size of China's mobile game users achieved at the end of June 2018. 

Ad monetization and in-app purchase largely increase revenue of WeChat mini games. Now, within the Android system, 10 mini games have registered monthly in-app purchases worth 10 million yuan (1.5 million U.S. dollars), with top-performing ones reporting 100 million yuan (14.8 million U.S. dollars), while 11 have logged ad revenue of over 10 million yuan (1.5 million U.S. dollars), with some crossing the 50-million-yuan (7.4-million-U.S. dollar) mark. 

The introduction of games will likely improve Meituan's monetization rate and lower its losses. 

According to the financial report for the third quarter of 2018, the platform's adjusted net loss was approximately 2.5 billion yuan (370.1 million U.S. dollars), a surge of 157.92 percent from the same period of the previous year. 

Internet analyst Wang Liyang said to NBD that the food delivery industry is returning to rational development after wild growth, and the priority for Meituan as a listed company is to increase profitability to win recognition of investors. 

Speculation has it that Meituan will draw game players by granting credits that could be redeemed for coupons in the initial stage. But how far Meituan could go remains unknown as the pattern in the gaming sector has been basically established.

Email: lansuying@nbd.com.cn