The competitive landscape for China's e-commerce and on-demand retail further intensified on the eve of the May Day golden week, with BABA-W (09988.HK)  +4.500 (+3.830%)    Short selling $1.40B; Ratio 15.820%   joining the “already fierce” battle by upgrading its on-demand delivery service and boosting promotional subsidies to compete with JD-SW (09618.HK)  +4.200 (+3.284%)    Short selling $179.61M; Ratio 7.733%   and MEITUAN-W (03690.HK)  +2.200 (+1.688%)    Short selling $446.69M; Ratio 11.741%   , Citi Research issued a report report saying.

The timing of this move makes perfect sense, as most of Chinese population will be traveling, shopping or hanging out during the holiday. Besides not wanting to lag behind JD-SW and MEITUAN-W, the broker believed that BABA-W's move may also be intended to demonstrate “good corporate citizenship”. The biggest beneficiaries will be consumers and merchants.

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The platform meets the “requirement” of supporting consumption and boosting merchants' income, but platform profit and investor interests would be adversely affected, Citi Research added. This is reminiscent of the brutal battle during the community group-buy subsidies a few years ago.

If PDD Holdings (PDD.US)      joins the game later, the situation will be even more interesting. MEITUAN-W will be the most affected, followed by JD-SW given BABA-W's higher gross margin and Ele.me's relatively small contribution.
(HK stocks quote is delayed for at least 15 mins.Short Selling Data as at 2025-05-02 16:25.) (Real-time Streaming US Stocks Quote; Except All OTC quotes are at least 15 minutes delayed.)