I held my Meituan position into the Q1 2026 earnings. Here is my honest take after reading through the results.

The revenue number was fine: RMB 91 billion, up 5.6% year-on-year, beating the estimate of RMB 90.79 billion. If I only looked at the top line, I would feel comfortable. The story is in the segments.

Core Local Commerce, which is the profitable heart of the business, swung to an operating loss of RMB 2 billion. Marketing expenses jumped 51.1% to RMB 23 billion. That is Meituan spending defensively because Douyin is genuinely competing for the same restaurant-discovery and local-services customers. I do not think this is a temporary blip. Douyin has deep pockets, a massive user base, and a video-first discovery experience that is genuinely better for certain use cases.

New Initiatives, which includes international expansion and on-demand retail, grew 23% year-on-year. That is the future growth engine. But it is not profitable yet. The model is paying for future growth by sacrificing today's core margins. That is a reasonable bet if the core eventually stabilises. The concern is that the marketing war with Douyin does not stabilise, and both the marketing line and the New Initiatives losses compound simultaneously.

My current thinking: I am not adding at current levels. The Hong Kong listing (3690.HK) has held up reasonably well given the earnings quality, but I want to see at least one quarter where core local commerce marketing spend as a percentage of revenue stops accelerating before I size up. The delivery infrastructure moat is real. The Douyin threat is also real. I am holding what I have, watching the Q2 marketing numbers very carefully, and not committing more capital until the competitive picture clarifies.