中国的外卖O2O红红火火

 　　The online-to-offline or O2O catering¹ sector² is now viewed as a multi-billion U.S. dollar industry.

　　Beijing-based consulting firm Sootoo estimates that more than 260 million users will order about 23 billion U.S. dollars' worth of meals online this year, with 80 percent of that from mobile phones.

　　"I like to use my phone to order meals from home. I use Baidu Waimai, it's very convenient,"

　　"I usually use my phone to order. It's easy. I use several apps - Wechat, Tao Diandian…"

　　中国的外卖O2O红红火火

　　China's tech giants Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, commonly known as the BAT, are all promoting their on-demand food delivery services.

　　An owner of a start-up O2O firm said this has made the market competition fierce.

　　"BAT have their own O2O platforms that dominate the market. Massive sales volume is the key to high profits for platforms like this. Restaurants prefer to use platform delivery services rather than set up their own operations."

　　Tech giants are putting ever growing pressure on companies that have been in the home delivery market for a decade or more.

　　Yvonne Sun is the director of Sherpa, an O2O catering company based in Shanghai.

　　Sherpa has been managing to target higher-end customers including expats and white-collar workers.

　　However Yvonne Sun said its market niche³ is becoming increasingly difficult to operate in.

　　"Delivery takes up the biggest amount of our operating costs. We can break even, but it's not easy in this business. It's very labor⁴ intensive, and profit margins⁵ are increasingly thin. We're being hit by increasing costs of the courier staff, and they're getting harder to find".

　　Despite rising competition and lowering profit margins, the O2O catering sector continues to attract venture capital.

　　Restaurant guidance portal Dianping.com has gained six rounds of fundraising, totaling about 9.6 billion US dollars.

　　Beijing-based group purchasing website Meituan is now worth seven billion U.S. dollars after its latest round of financing.

1 catering   

n. 给养

参考例句：

• Most of our work now involves catering for weddings. 我们现在的工作多半是承办婚宴。
• Who did the catering for your son's wedding? 你儿子的婚宴是由谁承办的？

2 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

3 niche   

n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等)

参考例句：

• Madeleine placed it carefully in the rocky niche. 玛德琳小心翼翼地把它放在岩石壁龛里。
• The really talented among women would always make their own niche.妇女中真正有才能的人总是各得其所。

4 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

5 margins   

边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数

参考例句：

• They have always had to make do with relatively small profit margins. 他们不得不经常设法应付较少的利润额。
• To create more space between the navigation items, add left and right margins to the links. 在每个项目间留更多的空隙，加左或者右的margins来定义链接。