For the third quarter of 2021, Meituan total revenues increased by 37.9% to RMB48.8 billion from RMB35.4 billion for the same period of 2020
As a result, both adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net profit experienced negative year-over-year growth for the third quarter of 2021 and turned to negative RMB4.1 billion and adjusted net loss RMB5.5 billion, respectively.
Meituan net cash flows from operating activities turned to an outflow of RMB4.0 billion in the third quarter of 2021 from an inflow of RMB3.3 billion for the same period of 2020. The company had cash and cash equivalents of RMB50.9 billion and short-term treasury investments of RMB70.0 billion as of September 30, 2021, compared to the balances of RMB71.4 billion and RMB51.1 billion as of June 30, 2021, respectively.
Food Delivery
In the third quarter of 2021, Meituan maintained resilient growth for the food delivery segment, despite the negative impact due to the Delta Variant, extreme weather and industry slowdown. During the quarter, GTV of our food delivery business increased by 29.5% year-over-year to RMB197.1 billion. Daily average number of food delivery transactions increased by 24.9% year-over-year to 43.6 million. Revenue increased by 28.0% year-over-year to RMB26.5 billion. Operating profit increased by 14.0% year-over-year to RMB876.1 million in the third quarter of 2021, with operating margin decreasing slightly to 3.3% from 3.7%.
New Initiatives and Others
In the third quarter of 2021, revenues from the new initiatives and others segment increased by 66.7% year-over-year to RMB13.7 billion, primarily driven by the growth in retail businesses and bike-sharing and moped services. Operating loss for the segment increased both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter to RMB10.9 billion in the third quarter of 2021, while operating margin decreased sequentially by 2.7 percentage points to negative 79.5% quarter-over-quarter.