China's food-delivery crackdown isn't just about subsidies. It's about what replaces them when cheap money and discounts disappear. And that's where JD.Com Inc (NASDAQ:JD) looks nothing like Meituan (OTC:MPNGF).
Meituan still relies on people—nearly 7 million riders, each more expensive and more regulated each year. JD is taking a different path. It's building what it openly calls a ‘Wolf Pack’: roughly 3 million delivery robots, 1 million autonomous vans, and 100,000 drones, all designed to do one thing — make last-mile delivery cheaper every year, not more expensive.
Subsidies Ending Changes The Game
When subsidies ruled, scale meant burning cash. Regulators are now squeezing that playbook. Once discounts are capped, delivery becomes a math problem, not a marketing one. The platform with the lowest cost per order wins.
Humans don't scale cheaply. Machines do.
JD's Quiet Automation Bet
In late 2025, JD Logistics laid out a five-year plan to automate the last mile end-to-end. Warehouses, sorting, routing, and final delivery are increasingly handled by software, sensors, and hardware — not riders racing against the clock.
That matters because robots don't unionize, don't demand higher subsidies, and don't trigger regulatory backlash. Once deployed, they get cheaper with every software update.
Meituan's Structural Problem
Meituan's model still depends on an army of humans to stay competitive. Rising labor costs and tighter rules don't just pressure margins — they hard-code inflation into every delivery.
JD's model does the opposite. Capital spending replaces labor, and costs fall over time.
Subsidy crackdowns don't reward who grew fastest — they reward who delivers cheapest.
Meituan is fighting a price war with a checkbook. JD is fighting it with a motherboard. When the dust settles, the only things still moving efficiently may be JD's machines.
Photo: Shutterstock
