Chinese food delivery giant Meituan reported a 28 per cent increase in revenue for the third quarter, as COVID restrictions in some areas have led customers to order food delivery more than they would have otherwise.

Meituan, whose services also include hotal& travel booking, transport ticketing, and bike-sharing, book a revenue of 62.62 billion yuan ($8.74 billion) in the three months ended September.

The Beijing-based company turned in a profit of 1.2 billion yuan, ending seven straight quarters of losses.

Revenue from core local commerce, which includes food delivery, and non-food delivery service Meituan Instashopping, rose 24.6% to 46.33 billion yuan. Meituan has also seen the average number of orders rose to 39.5 from 34.4 of same period last year.

Sales from Meituan Select, its community e-commerce business, grew by 39.7% year on year to 16.29 billion yuan.

Meituan is actively seeking to expand its food delivery business to Hong Kong to take on the local competitors such as Foodpanda and Deliveroo.

Explaining the rationale behind the decision making, CEO Wang Xing said in the earnings call that Hong Kong shares many similarities with mainland China including food habits.

Looking forward, Wang expected that Meituan’s hotel and travel business will continue to suffer from the pandemic with outbreaks locking down travel destinations

Chinese social media and gaming giant Tencent Holdings, which owns 17% of Meituan, said last week it would return capital to shareholders through a dividend distribution of its $20 billion stake which represents roughly 15.5% of the total shares issued.

In response, Meituan said its long business relationship with Tencent would remain unchanged after the divestment.