At the 2026 Meituan Instant Retail Industry Conference, Wang Puzhong, CEO of Meituan's Core Local Commerce division, delivered a keynote speech reviewing the sector's five-year trajectory and revealing that the company's earlier projections have already been surpassed.

Wang noted that the 2021 outlook, which anticipated the instant retail market reaching 1 trillion yuan in scale with over 500 million transacting users within five years, has been completed ahead of the original timeline.

"Instant retail is not emergency retail; it is a highly certain lifestyle," Wang stated, adding that this model has expanded well beyond daily necessities to encompass flowers, alcoholic beverages, 3C digital products, customized offerings, and products from new-generation supermarkets. "This highly certain lifestyle has already entered millions of households," he emphasized.

In 2024, Meituan set a new target to build 100,000 lightning stores by 2027, aiming for 200 billion yuan in gross merchandise value. Wang disclosed that based on current data, "this goal can definitely be accomplished ahead of schedule."

Simplifying the industry's growth flywheel, Wang identified three critical drivers: user demand, infrastructure development, and product supply. "As demand becomes more frequent and capacity grows, and as distribution networks and infrastructure mature, the space for product innovation expands correspondingly," he explained.