HungryPanda steers clear of price wars, prioritises quality and service

HungryPanda, the overseas food delivery platform specialising in Chinese and Asian food, is closely watching the price wars in China between rivals like Meituan and Alibaba Group Holding, a company executive said.

However, HungryPanda operated in markets with “less price sensitive” consumers who had “high spending power”, according to Kitty Liu, the company’s director of public affairs.

The rivals have been engaged in a fierce price war that included special offers of free meals and drinks to lure new users, with daily order numbers reaching hundreds of millions and subsidy and marketing costs estimated at hundreds of millions of yuan every day.

Liu said that although HungryPanda did not operate in China, it had been “closely observing the trend of instant commerce in China”.

Similarly, when HungryPanda launched its service in a new city, it also offered cash incentives, but customers in the United Kingdom, United States, Australia and other Western economies were not “very much price sensitive compared to users in China”, she said.