This article only represents the author's own views.
The instant commerce wars ravaging China’s retail landscape have claimed their biggest victim yet. That’s our flash verdict following the Thursday announcement that Dingdong (Cayman) Ltd. (DDL.US), one of China’s earliest online grocers and arguably one of its oldest instant retailers, is throwing its bag into the much larger shopping cart of rival Meituan (3690.HK).
Consolidation in China’s online sector rarely happens through this type of merger, partly because most companies are headed by fiercely independent founders who would rather see their empires go bankrupt than sell them to someone else. That was the case in 2022 when Dingdong’s former top rival Missfresh crashed and burned, even though many suitors probably would have considered buying the company while it was still doing reasonably well.