[ET Net News Agency, 24 December 2020] Huatai Research raised its target price for
Meituan (03690) to HK$336.6 from HK$299 and maintained its "buy" rating.
The research house said Meituan's strategy is reinforcing its leadership in China's
lifestyle-consumption industry by leveraging user traffic generated by its food-delivery
business to expand into e-commerce platform services with trillion-RMB gross merchandise
value (GMV) potential.
For 2020-22, factoring in the ramp-up of the group-buy business, Huatai lifted its
revenue CAGR forecast to 32.5% (from 30.8%), but lowered its non-IFRS net profit CAGR to
83.9% (from 90.5%) to account for increased investment in new initiatives.
Huatai expects the in-store, hotel, and travel (ISHT) business to rebound strongly in
2021 as Meituan maintains a dominant user mindshare advantage. (KL)