The "Meituan" ranked #18 on Singapore's food chart isn't Meituan
What it is A shell app that borrows Meituan's name and claims to offer food delivery and local services for overseas Thais. There is no real delivery business behind it.
Why it charted It isn't genuinely popular: 35k total installs, likely pushed to overseas Thai workers through group chats (our inference), a few hundred installs a day. That was enough to crack the food and drink charts in countries where the bar is low.
EWhat you can take from it Don't copy it. One lesson is worth keeping: on small-country Play charts, a few hundred installs a day can get you into the top 20. When you scout opportunities and see a fake big-brand name, a shell developer or 0 ratings, skip it.
- Data (updated daily) · first launch 2026-07-19 · 11-07 installs 35,609
Android · Total installs worldwide Data 2026-10-29 → 2026-11-07 (10 days, 10 observations). Google's detail page only refreshes install counts every other day, so a flat day doesn't mean nobody installed.
On Nov 6, the #18 free app on Singapore's Google Play food and drink chart was one called MEITUAN, sitting between Sushiro, Heytea and Uber Eats. It also charted in the same category in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand and 10 other countries, adding 5,558 installs in 7 days. It looks like Meituan finally took its super-app overseas. It isn't Meituan and has no delivery business. Below: what it is, where the installs come from, and the one lesson worth taking away.
A food delivery platform that says it serves overseas Thais
The store page description is in English: "MEITUAN is a leading local services platform providing comprehensive O2O services to the overseas Thai community", covering food delivery, instant delivery, in-store and travel. The update notes are in Lao and include a line about the "overseas Thai community".
Scroll further and there are many mismatches with the real Meituan (Google Play listing and developer page, 11-06):
| This MEITUAN | Real Meituan / Keeta | |
|---|---|---|
| Bundle ID | app.mt.meituan | com.sankuai.meituan / com.sankuai.sailor.afooddelivery |
| Developer | MEITUAN MT SOLE CO., LTD, address in Vientiane, Laos, phone +856, email is a Gmail address | Meituan's subsidiary |
| Privacy policy | Hosted on h5.shopeeios.com, a domain imitating Shopee. The terms are titled "MT Account Terms of Use" and still contain "Mi Home" and "Mi Coins", so the Xiaomi account agreement was copied with "Xiaomi" swapped for "MT". | Official domain |
| Data security | It says it "does not collect any data". A food delivery platform that collects no addresses or phone numbers can't run a business. | — |
| Version | 1.0.3, no updates since July | Updated continuously |
| Rating | 35k installs, 0 ratings | Meituan 4.78M installs, Keeta 19.6M installs |
The same developer also has an app called MT CAPITAL VIEW, listed under News, tagged with finance and crypto. Its Traditional Chinese blurb reads "Providing real-time market and investment news." It has 1+ downloads, and its website won't load.
It borrows a big company's name, sits under a shell company in Laos, runs on a Gmail address, uses a look-alike domain with copied privacy terms, claims it collects no data, and is listed under an "investment news" app. This is how Southeast Asian scam apps usually look: the store listing is just a shell, and the actual pages are served from a server, so the content can be swapped at any time. We haven't installed it to see what's inside, so calling it a scam is an inference, but a strong one.
The "Meituan" name has been used before
Using Meituan's name to scam people didn't start with this app.
- On Pantip, Thailand's biggest forum, someone asked "has anyone made money with this app?" The thread is tagged "online side jobs" and "warning". A reply says: "All of these are scams... the real Meituan app is Chinese." Another thread asks whether the Meituan shopping site is a scam, and the replies describe the usual pattern: you're told to "open a shop", fund the inventory yourself, and are promised a margin. It's a common fake e-commerce store-opening scam.
- There's a Thai topic page on TikTok called "Is the Meituan investment app a scam?"
- The Russian-speaking web has them too. A site that helps people recover losses wrote about it in 2026 Mar 30. It covers "Meituan" investment platforms like meituan01.com and meituan11.com: you can't register without an invite code, they hand you small "order-brushing" and "rate the order" tasks, let you pull out a bit of money at first, then push you to invest more, freeze your account, and finally ask you to pay "taxes."
- Meituan itself put out a statement in 2025 Oct 30, saying people were impersonating "Meituan Waimai" and "Meituan Shangou" with lines like "refer friends for rewards" and "business cooperation" to get people to download dodgy apps. It called these scams (Jiemian News).
The posts and articles aren't necessarily about this one package. What they show is that impersonating Meituan to scam Thai people, and people in other countries, has been going on for a while. We have not verified which of these, if any, this app matches.
Where the installs come from: people pulled into groups, plus a very low bar on the charts
Start with the install curve (AppstoreSpy estimates): Jul 29 320 installs, Aug 25 2,376, Sep 29 12,561, Oct 27 30,042, Nov 6 35,609. From September it's been 300 to 700 a day with the occasional spike, and Oct 21 came to roughly 2,150 in a single day. It has climbed steadily the whole time, which doesn't look like a sudden viral hit.
How does an app with a few hundred installs a day chart in 10 countries? Because the Food & Drink category charts there have a very low bar. From Oct 29 to Nov 6 it ranked 17 to 21 in Singapore, 23 to 33 in Hong Kong, 30 to 40 in South Korea, 35 to 37 in Taiwan, 32 to 39 in Malaysia, 43 to 47 in Thailand, and 62 to 77 in Australia. It never charted on any country's overall chart or its Top Grossing chart.
Look at which countries: Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia and Australia are exactly where Thai migrant workers are most concentrated. Thailand itself ranks lower. The app has no ratings and no public ad spend, nobody on X talks about it, and searching Thai terms for Meituan on TikTok turns up only real Meituan tutorials and news. Yet installs keep arriving every day. The most plausible explanation is that someone is recruiting part-time workers or investors in LINE or Facebook groups and sending the Play link to Thai people working overseas (inference; we haven't found the groups or the scripts). On Google Play, the listing itself lends a sense of trust, which makes it much easier to con people than an APK from an unknown source.
Where the money comes from
The store page shows no way to take money: no in-app purchases, no ads. If it really works the way the above suggests, the money is collected outside the app, with transfers labeled as things like "stock purchase," "top-up" or "upgrade" (inference; we haven't seen this directly).
Who it's competing with
Going by its own positioning, the competitors should be Grab, LINE MAN, ShopeeFood, foodpanda, Uber Eats, and Meituan's real overseas brand Keeta (19.6M installs, up 7k over 280 days, ranking #1 in Saudi Arabia's Food & Drink chart). But it doesn't play in the same league as any of them. It can't deliver a single food order. Its real peers are the endless stream of websites and apps with Meituan in the name that come and go. The Russian-language article says these sites usually last a few months, and once blocked, the operators switch to a new domain.
If it were you
E. Stay away. It isn't a product, it's the entry point to a scam. There's nothing here a legitimate founder could copy.
Who it fits: nobody. Even if you really wanted to build local services for Thai migrant workers abroad, this app proves nothing about demand. Its installs come from scripts pulling people in, not from people searching for it and finding it themselves.
Who it doesn't fit: anyone who sees "charting in 10 countries, up 18% in a week" and wants to copy it.
One takeaway: the Play category charts in small countries have a very low bar. A few hundred installs a day is enough for #18 in Singapore's Food & Drink chart. When you use category charts to find opportunities, skip anything that shows several of these together: it borrows a big company's name, the developer is a shell company or uses a personal email, it has tens of thousands of installs but only 0 ratings, the privacy policy sits on an odd domain, and the countries where it charts match exactly where one particular community lives. It works the other way too: if you have an existing community and want your legitimate app to appear on a small country's category chart, a few hundred real installs a day is enough.
Signs we got this wrong: (1) Meituan or Keeta claims the package, or the developer changes to a company under Meituan; (2) the app actually takes food orders, with real merchants and couriers in Singapore, Hong Kong and similar places; (3) over the next month the reviews start filling with real users talking about deliveries. If any one of these turns out true, the judgment above needs to be revisited.
---
Data and sources: Google Play listing and developer page (11-06); installs and chart positions are Google Play public figures and AppstoreSpy estimates (10-29 to 11-06); Pantip posts 42871314, 43190296; TikTok topic page "แอปลงทุน Meituan โกงไหม"; finspace.info (2026-03-30); Jiemian News (2025-10-30). Anything marked "inference" is inference. We did not install the app and have not seen what's inside it.
Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
- Competitors
Name Where Launched Scale How it differs from this one Meituan (com.sankuai.meituan) Android 2011 Play 4.78M installs The real Meituan, serving mainland China; this app has nothing to do with Meituan, it's just using the name Keeta(com.sankuai.sailor.afooddelivery) Android 2023 Play 19.6M installs, +280k in 7 days Meituan's real overseas food delivery brand with a real business; this app has no delivery capability at all Grab / LINE MAN / ShopeeFood / foodpanda Android Years ago tens of millions Real food delivery platform serving Thai and Southeast Asian users Other fake-Meituan order-brushing / store-opening scam websites and apps Other Keeps appearing Unknown Same playbook; this app's only difference is that it sits on Google Play and targets Thais overseas - Where users come from
- Inference Private targeted recruitment (LINE/Facebook groups, part-time job or investment scripts sending the Play link): no ratings, no public promotion, yet a steady few hundred installs a day, concentrated in the countries where overseas Thai workers are (sg/hk/tw/kr/my/au), consistent with the description "overseas Thai community"
- Verified Borrowing a big company's name + Google Play trust: the name and icon say MEITUAN, but the developer is actually MEITUAN MT SOLE CO., LTD in Laos (Gmail address); the privacy policy sits on a Shopee-lookalike domain h5.shopeeios.com, with content copied from Xiaomi's account agreement
- Inference Accidental install from store search: someone searching for Meituan might land on it, but there is no direct evidence
MEITUAN (app.mt.meituan) research report
Channel: Google Play | Research date: 2026-11-06 | Data card: cards/play_app.mt.meituan.json
Bottom line
This is not Meituan. It's a shell app riding on the "Meituan / MEITUAN" name. The developer is "MEITUAN MT SOLE CO., LTD", registered in Vientiane, Laos (Gmail address). The privacy policy sits on a Shopee-lookalike domain, and its content is copied from Xiaomi's account agreement. Why it "ran up" is not because of the product or any differentiation, but because of private recruitment: a few hundred installs a day, concentrated in countries with many Thai overseas workers (Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Australia). Those countries' free Food & Drink category charts have a very low bar, so it charted in 10 countries. It very likely fits the typical Thai-language scam pattern of "fake order-brushing / store-opening / investment schemes posing as big platforms" (we have not obtained in-app screenshots and haven't fully verified it). Not worth copying, and not an opportunity.
1. What it actually is: identity check
| items | This app | Real Meituan / Keeta |
|---|---|---|
| Bundle ID | app.mt.meituan | com.sankuai.meituan (Meituan), com.sankuai.sailor.afooddelivery (Keeta) |
| Developer | MEITUAN / MEITUAN MT SOLE CO., LTD, address Wattaynoy Thong Village, Sikhottabong District, Laos, phone +856, email [email protected] | Xiamen Sankuai Online Technology Co., Ltd. / KANGAROO LIMITED |
| Privacy policy | h5.shopeeios.com/... (a Shopee-lookalike domain). The body is the "MT Account Usage Agreement", and it still contains "Mijia" and "Mi Coins", copied straight from Xiaomi's account agreement with "Xiaomi" swapped for "MT" | Official domain |
| Data security statement | "Collects no data at all". A food delivery platform could never say that. | — |
| Version | 1.0.3, package 15–25MB, no updates since July | Ongoing iteration |
| Release notes | Description written in Lao ("ນາຍMEITUAN…ຊຸມຊົນຄົນໄທຍ໌ຕ່າງປະເທດ") | — |
| Rating | 35k installs, 0 ratings (the ratings table in the library has always been empty) | Meituan 4.78M and Keeta 19.6M installs (googleplay library, 2026-11-06) |
| Another app from the same developer | MT CAPITAL VIEW (app.mt.capital.files): a "News" app with 1+ downloads, categorized under finance / crypto, its update notes in Traditional Chinese read "Providing real-time market and investment news", and the website mtcapitalview.com returns "Network error, please try again later" | — |
Sources: Google Play listing play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.mt.meituan and play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.mt.capital.files (read 2026-11-06); developer page play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=MEITUAN; googleplay library app and app_snap tables; privacy policy page h5.shopeeios.com/pages/home/article/Document?type=agreement.
Put these traits together (a borrowed big-brand name, a shell company in Laos, a Gmail contact, a fake Shopee-lookalike domain, a copied privacy policy, a claim of collecting no data, a 0 rating, and one entity running a "Investment News" shell) and you get the classic look of a Southeast Asian scam app: the store listing is just a wrapper (usually a WebView), and the real pages live on the server, swappable at any time.
Thai-language communities already have discussions about scams under the "Meituan" name:
- Pantip "มีใครเคยทำแอปนี้แล้วได้เงินไหมครับ" (Has anyone made money from this app?), tagged "online work / warning", with a reply "แนวนี้คือหลอกลวงทุกแอป… มีแอพ meituan จริง แต่เป็นของจีน" (This kind is all scams… there is a real Meituan app, but it's Chinese) pantip.com/topic/42871314
- Pantip "เว็ปขายของ meituan ใช่มิจฉาชีพมั้ยคับ" (Is the Meituan selling website a scammer?), with a reply describing it asking you to "open a store", first paying your own money for stock and earning the markup, a classic fake e-commerce store-opening scam pantip.com/topic/43190296
- A TikTok topic page "แอปลงทุน Meituan โกงไหม" (Is the Meituan investment app a scam?) exists at www.tiktok.com/discover/แอปลงทุน-meituan-โกงไหม
Note: these posts don't necessarily refer to this one package, app.mt.meituan. They only show that the "impersonating Meituan to scam Thais" pattern has been around for a while. The direct link between this app and these scams is unverified.
2. Competitors
On paper it does "local life / food delivery for Thais overseas," but it has no delivery business in practice. Competitors by stated positioning:
| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meituan (com.sankuai.meituan) | Android/iOS | 2011 | Play 4.78M installs (googleplay library 11-06) | The real one; serves mainland China only |
| Keeta(com.sankuai.sailor.afooddelivery) | Android/iOS | 2023 Hong Kong, later Middle East and Brazil | Play 19.6M installs, 7 days +280k, ranked #1 in Saudi Arabia's Food & Drink chart | Meituan's real overseas brand; this app has nothing to do with it |
| Grab / LINE MAN / ShopeeFood / foodpanda | Thailand and Southeast Asia | Years | tens of millions | A real food delivery platform |
| Local real delivery services (Uber Eats, Baemin, Deliveroo, etc.) | Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea | Years | Big | It sits alongside them in these countries' charts, but offers no similar service |
| Other fake "brushing / store-opening" scam apps and web pages | Web pages, sideloaded APKs, stores | Keeps appearing | Unknown | Same kind of thing; Pantip already has several threads on it |
3. Growth data
- Install curve (AppstoreSpy estimate, googleplay library
app_day_ext): Jul 29 320 → Aug 25 2,376 → Sep 29 12,561 → Oct 27 30,042 → Nov 6 35,609. From September it's roughly 300–700 a day, with occasional spikes (10-04 about 1,200, 10-21 about 2,150), a steady linear climb, not a breakout. - Last 7 days +5,558 (googleplay library
app_profile, 11-06). - Chart rank (googleplay library
chart_rank, 10-29 to 11-06): only on the "Food & Drink, Free" category chart, sg 17–21, hk 23–33, kr 30–40, tw 35–37, my 32–39, th 43–47, au 62–77, ph 85–99, id 98–114, ca 125–161, occasionally fr and br. Never charted on any overall or Top Grossing chart. - Read: a few hundred global installs a day is enough to land #18 on Singapore's Food & Drink chart (neighbors near that rank include Sushiro, Heytea, and Uber Eats, so these category charts have a low bar). The country spread matches Thai overseas labor hubs (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia), consistent with the description's "overseas Thai community", which suggests installs come from targeted recruitment, not organic store traffic.
4. Growth tactics
- Recruitment through private networks (inferred, no paid promotion directly found): no ratings, no public promotion, no media or X discussion. Searching TikTok for Thai-language terms around meituan turns up only real Meituan tutorials and news. Yet installs steadily run at several hundred a day, spread across Thai labor-exporting countries. This best fits a pattern of recruiting part-time workers or investment "opportunities" in LINE or Facebook groups and sending the Play link to install.
- Riding a big-company name: the name and icon are literally MEITUAN, borrowing credibility from Meituan's and Keeta's overseas expansion. Being listed on Google Play is itself a trust signal (easier to deceive people with than a sideloaded APK).
- Store search: some people searching "Meituan" may install it by mistake, but real Meituan's overseas installs are limited to begin with, so this contributes little (unverified).
5. Why it "broke through"
- It hasn't really broken through: 35k cumulative installs, charting only on low-bar category charts (googleplay library).
- The resurgence signal comes from "10 countries charting at once + 7 days +18%", but this is caused by the low bar on category charts plus targeted recruitment, not by product demand.
- It keeps getting installs by impersonating "Meituan" and leaning on Google Play's trust, targeting overseas Thai laborers who have less information (inferred).
6. Differentiation
No product-level differentiation. The only "unique" thing is targeting the overseas Thai segment, but that's how the scam picks its victims, not a product positioning.
7. How many people are seeing it / copying it
- Visibility: no revenue disclosed, no media or X coverage; only scattered "is this a scam?" questions on Thai forums.
- Copycats: scams impersonating Meituan (web pages, apps) already existed in the Thai-speaking world (multiple Pantip threads). This playbook wasn't invented here.
8. What to borrow
- Nothing on the product side. Methodology note: on Play, small-country category charts have a very low bar, a few hundred installs a day can get you into the top 20. Filter out any app that shows several country category charts + no ratings + a borrowed big-brand name + a Gmail or shell developer + a mismatched privacy policy domain.
9. Uncertain
- I did not install the app or open it to see the actual content (whether it's a WebView brushing / investment page). The scam nature is a strong inference, not something I saw firsthand.
- I did not find the specific groups or scripts used for recruitment.
- Listed on Play on 2026-07-19, but the update time shows 2026-05-25, suggesting it may have been submitted earlier or reset.
- Could be taken down by Google at any time.