BEIJING, May 17 (Xinhua) -- Asian restaurants have been growing fast in the Chinese mainland as young Chinese develop appetites for diverse cuisines, a report showed.
Over 120,000 Asian restaurants were listed on Meituan Dianping, a popular Chinese online food delivery-to-ticketing services platform, by the end of 2018, growing almost fourfold compared with 2015, data from the company revealed Thursday.
Japanese food is the most popular Asian cuisine, accounting for over half of the Asian restaurants listed on Meituan Dianping, followed by South Korean food and Southeast Asian food.
Restaurants featuring food in South Asia, West Asia and Central Asia posted robust growth momentum. Indian restaurants grew nearly sevenfold from 2014 to 2018.
Asian food is most popular in the first-tier cities of Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, while interest is growing fast in emerging first-tier cities such as Changsha, Wuhan and Zhengzhou.
The post-90s and post-80s generations made up the lion's share of Asian food diners thanks to their appetites for diverse cuisines, the report showed.
Meituan Dianping's data also showed that Chinese restaurants have been expanding rapidly in other Asian countries. Listings on its platform reached over 44,000 by the end of 2018, up about 120 percent compared with 2015. Enditem
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