Meituan CEO Wang Xing's latest statement: reduce "Dengwei," strengthen AI, and stabilize overseas expansion

On March 13, Meituan held the 2026 Management Communication Conference, with over 2,000 managers participating both online and offline. Meituan CEO Wang Xing shared his views on the grocery retail industry, internationalization, and AI development.

When mentioning company managers, Wang Xing said: “I want to make this more specific—we should all strive to reduce ‘登味’ (a nickname), starting with me.”

Wang Xing mentioned that everyone is used to calling him “Xing Ge,” which is a clear form of “登味,” and this nickname actually started back in 1997. He explained the origin of the name “Xing Ge”: “Because I shared a dorm with Lao Wang (Meituan co-founder Wang Huiwen), and there were two Wangs in the dorm. He’s a few months older than me, so from 1997 when we started school, he was Lao Wang, and I was Xing Ge. That’s how it’s continued.”

In response, Wang Xing issued a specific initiative: “I hope everyone inside the company will call me by my name directly, and stop calling me XX Ge. Starting from me, from this moment on, don’t call me Xing Ge anymore—just call me Wang Xing. I don’t have an English name. Although I studied in the U.S., I don’t have an English name either. We should start with ourselves and embrace new things and trends.”

At the conference, Wang Xing also focused on sharing his views on AI development: “The changes brought by AI will be much greater than those brought by the entire internet.” He believes that mobile internet and the internet are not fundamentally different—they might be like roses and peonies—whereas AI compared to the internet is more like monkeys and flowers, with a much larger scale and impact.

“‘Old experts’ may not always be effective, and young people’s various ‘weird’ ideas will continue to burst out. Facing the AI wave, the only thing we can do is actively embrace it,” Wang Xing said. He noted that the impact of AI agents on him is even greater than ChatGPT. Having experienced the shift from the internet to mobile internet, he is certain that the changes brought by AI will be much larger—they are destined to create enormous productivity and will definitely bring significant changes to organizations and work modes.

Wang Xing stated that for Meituan, the digitalization of the physical world will be a very important foundation for AI. “Although large models are becoming smarter, we can imagine that even if Einstein were a secretary and asked him to book a restaurant, he still wouldn’t know if there are seats available. That’s not an intelligence issue, but an information problem.”

Regarding Meituan’s internationalization, Wang Xing summarized it as: “Stay firm in internationalization, focus on internationalization.” “The company’s confidence in internationalization is firm, and our determination is clear, but we are not blindly expanding. We are not exploring every business separately.”

Wang Xing said that over the past year, the company’s confidence and determination in internationalization have been clear, but the focus should be more concentrated. A firm internationalization does not mean all businesses should be expanded simultaneously at this moment, but rather that the focus should be on the core—instant retail.

Apart from Hong Kong, Meituan Keeta has completed coverage of major countries in the Middle East Gulf region and is expanding into Brazil. Wang Xing stated that the Brazilian market has enormous long-term value and is worth deep cultivation, but investments in Brazil should not be fully rolled out everywhere. Instead, the company should select suitable locations, forget past success stories, refine the model, and then expand. Meituan will develop steadily in Brazil but will not pursue blind expansion.

Source: Bian Niushi

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