China’s Meituan to Invest $1 Billion in Brazil

Chinese food delivery giant Meituan has signed an agreement with Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (ApexBrasil) to invest $1 billion in Brazil for five years with its overseas brand Keeta, aiming to tap into the market of the South American country.

Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and Meituan founder and CEO Wang Xing witnessed the signing of the investment agreement between ApexBrasil and Keeta during the China-Brazil Business Summit, held in Beijing on Monday. Meituan will introduce its food delivery service Keeta to Brazil in the coming months.

Meituan CEO Wang Xing said that Brazil is a very large market with huge potential. Keeta will be committed to improving the local consumer experience, promoting the development of partner restaurants, and creating more local employment opportunities.

According to the investment agreement, after entering Brazil, Keeta will build a nationwide instant delivery network to provide local users with better food delivery services. At the same time, Keeta will provide local partners with comprehensive services, diversified marketing tools and digital operation tools to support the business growth of local catering businesses.

Keeta’s entry into Brazil is an important step forward for Meituan’s international business, and also a positive exploration by Meituan as a Chinese enterprise to actively respond to the national call and enhance China’s international competitiveness and open cooperation in service trade.

New Business Formats

Meituan will promote the development of more new business formats that are suitable for the characteristics of overseas markets by promoting the deep integration of digitalisation and service trade.

In Hong Kong, China, Keeta has been operating for two years, helping restaurant partners double their sales on the platform. Keeta was launched in Saudi Arabia in September 2024 and has covered all core cities there. The number of users and order volume has grown rapidly, and the number of merchants has continued to increase.

Wang Xing said that internationalisation is one of Meituan’s long-term development strategies and the company will continue to work hard to ‘go global’ to expand overseas markets and create a new situation for development.

“Just as in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions, our beneficial experience and advanced technology in the food delivery industry can benefit users, which makes us very excited. We also look forward to providing more choices for Brazilian consumers and contributing to the growth of the local economy,” he added.

This new investment agreement also comes as Chinese e-commerce platform JD.com intensified the domestic market competition by launching price wars.