SHANGHAI, July 6 -- Chinese delivery giant Meituan said its on-demand delivery business hit a record high over the weekend, with more than 120 million orders placed in a single day - the highest volume since its founding in 2010.

South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that food deliveries made up the bulk of yesterday's transactions, with 100 million orders or 83 per cent of the total.

It added that the surge briefly overwhelmed Meituan's servers, causing temporary outages in some areas, the company said in a statement. Services resumed within hours after emergency safeguards were triggered.

The spike in volume comes as China's e-commerce giants, including Alibaba and JD.com, intensify efforts to carve out a bigger slice of the insta...