Eliza Wong
The New Front in China’s Local Services Battle
Alibaba and Meituan are clashing again, this time over the lucrative local services market. On September 10, marking Alibaba’s 26th anniversary, its mapping subsidiary Gaode Maps officially launched the ‘Gaode Street Sweeping List,’ emphasizing ‘authenticity’ and ‘never commercialized.’ This move directly challenges Meituan’s Dianping, the dominant player in local business recommendations. The local services battle has entered a new phase, with both giants deploying significant resources to win consumer trust and merchant loyalty.
Rumors had been circulating for months about Alibaba developing a high-priority local生活 project at its headquarters. Gaode teams were frequently shuttling between Beijing and Hangzhou for coordination. Job seekers and former Gaode employees reported receiving special project interviews or return invitations in August. The core team was reportedly working in isolation at Alibaba’s Xixi Campus ‘C4 Building,’ further confirming Alibaba’s intensified efforts in local services.
Now this mysterious project has been unveiled. As expected, Alibaba is attacking local services again, this time pinning its hopes on transforming Gaode from a mapping tool into a consumption decision入口. Surprisingly, the initiative isn’t integrated with Alibaba’s other services and is operating as a standalone effort by Gaode alone.
What is Gaode Street Sweeping List?
The Gaode Street Sweeping List comprises four main sections: Top List, Street Sweeping List, Popular Check-ins, and City Guide, covering ‘eating, drinking, entertainment, and accommodation.’
The ‘Top List’ is an annual ranking covering food, hotels, and scenic spots. The ‘Street Sweeping List’ is a daily ranking focused primarily on offline food establishments. It also includes specialized food lists such as ‘Local Favorite Eateries,’ ‘Places Locals Love,’ and ‘Frequent Visits.’ The ‘Popular Check-ins’ and ‘City Guide’ sections focus on surrounding entertainment, social venues, and scenic areas.
Currently, Gaode Street Sweeping List covers over 300 prefecture-level cities nationwide, featuring 1.6 million businesses including 870,000 restaurants, 230,000 hotels, and nearly 50,000 scenic spots.
Key Features and Differentiation
According to Gaode, the Street Sweeping List has two main highlights: authenticity and non-commercialization. The list integrates user behavior data (such as navigation, search, store visits, and collections) with AI algorithms and incorporates Sesame Credit for credibility weighting. The ‘never commercialized’ promise means no advertising or commission入口, preventing the list from being ‘bought.’
This approach contrasts sharply with Meituan’s Dianping, which reportedly generated over 10 billion yuan in commission and advertising revenue in 2021, accounting for nearly one-third of Meituan’s local services business. A restaurant owner told Dingjiao One that without spending on promotion on Dianping, it’s difficult for stores to get noticed by customers. While Gaode’s ‘never commercialized’ slogan is appealing, he admitted the product is still new and idealistic, requiring ongoing observation to see if the platform ‘practices what it preaches.’
Alibaba’s Checkered History in Local Services
This isn’t Gaode’s first attempt at rankings, nor is it Alibaba’s first move in the local services sector. Back in 2020, Gaode launched ‘Gaode Guide,’ featuring ‘must-visit lists’ covering food, hotels, attractions, and entertainment. However, those were static lists without the dynamic updates based on AI algorithms and user behavior data that characterize the current Street Sweeping List.
Alibaba’s local services story begins much earlier with Koubei.com. In 2004, Li Zhiguo left Alibaba to found Koubei.com, initially focused on property information. Two years later, Alibaba invested, and Koubei expanded its business scope. In 2008, Alibaba completed a full acquisition of Koubei, with Li returning to lead the venture, which merged with Yahoo China to become ‘Yahoo Koubei.’
Looking back, Koubei resembled Alibaba’s ‘testing tool’ in local services, missing the opportunity to compete head-on with Dianping. The following year, with Alibaba’s ‘Great Taobao’ strategy upgrade, Koubei was incorporated into the Taobao system. This adjustment appeared to be resource integration but actually left Koubei in a ‘positioning模糊’ dilemma. Reports suggest that after the merger, most of Koubei’s veteran employees left. Alibaba’s first local services exploration ended in ‘confusion.’
The Mobile Internet Era and Repeated Attempts
Not until the mobile internet wave emerged in 2013 did O2O (online to offline) models become market hotspots, prompting Alibaba to accelerate its local services layout. On one hand, it launched the ‘TaodianDian’ platform, covering food delivery and group buying. On the other hand, it acquired a 28% stake in Gaode through investment,首次涉足 map services, completing a full acquisition for $1.1 billion the following year. The second attempt had clear thinking but failed to achieve scale in execution.
2015 marked a significant development year for mobile payments in China. Alipay urgently needed to consolidate user loyalty through offline scenarios, leading to important adjustments in Alibaba’s local services strategy. In June, Alibaba and Ant Financial (now Ant Group) officially rebooted ‘Koubei,’ with then Alibaba Vice President Fan Chi taking over as CEO. Simultaneously, TaodianDian’s merchant-side resources and operations team were merged into Koubei, achieving resource concentration. This reboot transformed Koubei from ‘information provision’ to ‘local生活 transaction services,’ launching an independent app in 2017.
2018 became a crucial year for Alibaba’s local services: In April, Alibaba fully acquired Ele.me, directly addressing its ‘home delivery’ business短板, complementing Koubei’s ‘store visit’ business. In October, Ele.me and Koubei formally merged, establishing Alibaba Local Life Service Company, creating a local services platform led by Alibaba co-founder Wang Lei. This phase represented Alibaba’s third major move in local services, but integration effects fell short of expectations. Analysys data showed Koubei and Ele.me had 4 million active merchants in first-half 2019, compared to Meituan’s 5.9 million. In food delivery, Meituan consistently held over half the market share.
The Current Competitive Landscape
Gaode’s aggressive ‘street sweeping’ has prompted defensive measures from Meituan. On the same day Gaode launched its list, Meituan’s Dianping announced it would formally ‘restart’ quality food delivery service, using ‘AI+authentic high scores’ to provide reliable decision-making for users while eliminating non-authentic review data. At the ‘Quality Food Delivery’ entrance on Dianping, 25 million various types of large ‘quality food delivery’ coupons will be distributed.
Prior to this, Meituan launched the food community product ‘Yami’ APP, also promoting a rejection of commercialization. This series of actions is seen as Meituan’s defense and counterattack. The food delivery war hasn’t yet settled, and a new round of competition is beginning.
Gaode’s Advantages and Challenges
Gaode Street Sweeping List’s advantages begin with its natural流量入口. Gaode boasts 700 million monthly active users and 170 million daily active users, generating 120 million life service-related searches daily, making it a truly national-level APP. iiMedia Research data shows that among map navigation apps used by Chinese netizens in 2024, Gaode Maps, Baidu Maps, and Tencent Maps ranked top three at 46.17%, 36.96%, and 28.83% respectively.
Secondly,种草 content on platforms like Dianping and Xiaohongshu is often criticized for ‘too many ads, lacking authenticity,’ with missing authoritative lists creating certain market opportunities. Gaode’s use of navigation data as list evaluation basis does provide some differentiation.
However, Gaode faces significant challenges too. First, the profit model is模糊, with the ‘never commercialized’ positioning raising questions about business sustainability. A coffee shop owner revealed to Dingjiao One that when applying to join Gaode’s merchant platform, much information requires opening ‘Gaode Wangpu’ to complete, such as setting group-buy activities, distributing coupons, uploading and updating product information. Even without开通, store photos are limited to three uploads. The opening interface currently shows ‘Gaode Wangpu’ basic version at 600 yuan/year, 688 yuan/13 months.
Although this seems to mirror Meituan’s ‘Promotion Tong’ model with little impact on Street Sweeping List rankings, the merchant still felt uncomfortable about it.
Secondly, the map model relied upon by Gaode Street Sweeping List has certain limitations. Users have pointed out that labels like ‘regular customer restaurants’ and ‘locals’ favorites’ often contradict navigation usage scenarios. Some users even worry that since most still rely on Dianping recommendations before navigating, might this just become a copy of Dianping’s lists?
Will Gaode Succeed Where Others Failed?
Alibaba’s local services journey has spanned over a decade, from Koubei’s early exploration to TaodianDian’s experimentation, then Ele.me’s acquisition and now Gaode taking the baton. Whether Gaode can become Alibaba’s ‘breakthrough key’ in local services remains unknown.
From available information, the current Gaode Street Sweeping List remains in a solo combat stage, without coordination from Ele.me or flash sales, no heavy subsidies, and no group高层 ‘endorsement.’ An industry insider believes this looks more like Gaode demonstrating its value to the group internally.
Li Chengdong, founder of Dolphin Club, commented that Gaode Street Sweeping List’s move is ‘steady, accurate, and ruthless,’ hitting the pain point precisely. But if Alibaba wants to use Gaode Maps to change user perceptions, making map navigation challenge Meituan as the primary local生活 service入口, it still faces enormous challenges.
Summarizing multiple practitioners’ views, Gaode Street Sweeping List’s launch will bring industry discussion short-term, with a differentiated value proposition. However, in the fiercely competitive local services sector, ‘lists are difficult to do’ has long been an industry consensus. Even backed by a giant like Alibaba, Gaode cannot achieve disruptive breakthrough quickly.
Compared with the food delivery battle initiated by Taobao Flash Sales, Meituan doesn’t need to panic too much this time. The local services battle will likely continue evolving as both platforms refine their approaches based on user feedback and market response.
What’s your perspective on this latest development in China’s local services market? Do you think non-commercialized recommendations can truly compete with established monetized platforms? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
