Meituan Dianping CEO Wang Xing [File photo/Zhang Si (NBD)]

China's service-focused e-commerce giant Meituan Dianping saw its revenue decline in the first quarter of 2020 amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

Operating revenue fell 12.6 percent year on year to 16.8 billion yuan (around 2.36 billion U.S. dollars), registering a 216 million-yuan net loss, the company said in its financial report.

In the first three months, the revenue of Meituan's food delivery business was 9.5 billion yuan, down 11.4 percent year on year. The company handled 15.1 million orders daily during the period, a fall of 18.2 percent.

The company said businesses have been seeing recovery since February 20.

In the meantime, Meituan's dine-in, hotel and tourism services were hit even harder, with revenue plunging 31.1 percent from the same period last year to 3.1 billion yuan in the first quarter, the report said.

However, the epidemic in a way helped Meituan draw potential customers, while more catering enterprises also started to pay attention to online channels and take-out services, it said.

The epidemic has a positive effect on promoting online business in the long run, which strengthened the company's confidence in further investment, said Chen Shaohui, Meituan's CFO.

Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn