Ele.me, an online food delivery platform reportedly plans to seize at least 50% of China’s food delivery market in the short term. The company has kicked off a major growth-oriented push, driven by a summer campaign of RMB 3 billion. The campaign includes new promotions and red packets and is already exhibiting promising outcomes in a number of cities across China.

Post Ele.me’s acquisition by e-commerce giant Alibaba earlier in 2018, the former’s growth has reportedly accelerated beyond measure.

Ele.me’s recent maneuver to gain market share consisted of discounts for customers and coupons for food orders late in the night during the FIFA World Cup. Proving to be successful, this initiative catapulted food delivery in July beginning and company data has projected steady momentum moving forward.

The campaign has garnered positive responses from customers across China. Reports from the city of Hangzhou show that the company signed 100,000 customers into its membership program in July, while another city, Changsha reported the rise of gross transactions volumes by about 15% during the initial weeks of July as compared to the same weeks in the prior month.

Wang Lai, Ele.me CEO stated that Alibaba’s help and commitment in developing the strong delivery platform in China is a robust vote of confidence in the company’s ability to achieve future goals. He added that that the strong financial support coupled with the company’s better assimilation into the Alibaba ecosystem has put Ele.me on a unique pedestal within this high growth domain.

Incidentally, food delivery is among the fastest expanding sectors in China with Chinese customers spending approximately RMB 4 trillion in 2017 on food alone. A report by the CCA (China Cuisine Association) also revealed that less that 10 percent of that amount was expended on food delivery.