After work, you go back home, open an app, place your order, and wait for your food to be delivered (投递) your home. This is how many young people eat in China these days. According to the latest report from the China Internet Network Information Center. 421 million Chinese people use online food delivery services. That's just half of the total number of Internet users in China.
Which group of people is ordering food online the most? For sure, it is mainly young people. A recent report by Meituan, a food delivery service, showed that 86.3% of the service's users are between 20 and 34 years old. These people are the main force driving the development of the food delivery industry.
Small families depend largely on food delivery services, Chinese families have changed in size over the past ten years. In 2002, only 7.7% of families have only one person. But this number increased to 15.6% in 2017. Two-person families rose from 18.4% in 2002 to 27.2% in 2017. For small families, cooking always takes a lot of time and energy, so ordering food online has become more popular.
The improvement of China's food delivery services has also made more customers interested. According to Meituan's report, the average (平均) time it takes to make a food delivery dropped from 38 minutes in 2016 to 29 minutes in 2020. Many delivery apps are also offering more services, delivering products such as fruit, vegetables, medicine and even flowers. As their services continue to improve, it's certain that the food delivery industry will keep growing in the future.
