12. Open an app, place your order, and wait for your food to be delivered (递送) to your home—this is how many people eat in China these days. According to the latest data (数据), about 421 million Chinese people use online food delivery services. That's equal to half of the total number of Internet users in China.
Which group of people is ordering food online the most nowadays? Unsurprisingly, it's mainly young people. A recent report showed that 86.3 percent of the service's users are between 20 and 34 years old. These people, who are more likely (可能的) to live in small families, are the major force (力量) driving the development of the food delivery industry.
Small families depend greatly on food delivery services. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Chinese families have changed in size over the past decade. In 2002, only 7.7 percent of families were single-person households. But this number increased to 15.6 percent in 2017. The percentage of two-person families rose from 18.4 in 2002 to 27.2 in 2017. For small families, cooking is relatively (相对) more time-consuming, so ordering food online has become more popular.
The improvement of China's food delivery services has also attracted more customers. According to Meituan's report, the average time it takes to make a food delivery dropped from 38 minutes in 2016 to 29 minutes in 2019. Many delivery platforms are also offering more services, delivering products such as fruit, vegetables, medicine and flowers. As its services continue to improve, it's likely that the food delivery industry will keep growing.