Bloomberg reported earlier that Meituan was considering a secondary listing in China as soon as next year, citing unidentified sources.

Meituan was considering ChiNext, a Nasdaq-style board under the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, among potential listing venues in mainland China, Bloomberg reported.

Meituan shares were up as much as 2% after the second lisiting news in early afternoon.

The on-demand service giant, whose apps range from grocery delivery to hotel booking, is expanding into new areas such as fresh food - a sector boosted by pandemic lockdown measures.

Shares of Meituan have been more than quadrupled since its debut in Hong Kong two years ago.

(Reporting by Yingzhi Yang in Beijing and Brenda Goh in Shanghai; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Kim Coghill)