Retail in Asia

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Chinese e-commerce firm JD.com’s revenue jumps 47 percent

JD.com China revenue growth - Retail in Asia

JD.com Inc, China’s second biggest e-commerce firm, said fourth-quarter revenue jumped 47 percent from a year earlier driven by strong sales in their core e-commerce businesses. Amid fierce competition, JD has sought to diversify into data, cloud and finance services. It has also expanded its offerings of fast moving consumer goods including household supplies and grocery products.

Revenue for the three months to end-December came in at 80.3 billion yuan ($11.67 billion), beating JD’s forecast of 75-77.5 billion yuan and up from 54.6 billion yuan in the previous year.

It also expects revenue to fall to between 72.3 billion and 74.3 billion yuan in the first quarter.

The firm’s core gross merchandise volume, a measure of overall sales volume for products on their platform excluding Paipai.com, rose 46 percent to 209.7 billion yuan from the year earlier.

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JD said it agreed on March 1 to move ahead with the reorganization of its financial unit, making the unit a fully Chinese-owned entity, which is a licensing requirement for managing certain financial products in the country.

JD.com, which owns 68.6 percent of the unit prior to the deal, will sell 28.6 percent of the unit for approximately 14.3 billion yuan in cash, the company said.

JD.com chairman Richard Liu will acquire a stake of about 4.3 percent in the reorganized unit and obtain a majority of voting rights.

In return JD.com will receive 40 percent of the restructured entity’s pre-tax profit after the transaction. JD.com will maintain an option to convert that back to a 40 percent equity stake should the regulatory environment change.

The transactions are expected to close in mid-2017.

JD.com’s net loss fell to 1.67 billion yuan, from 7.63 billion yuan a year earlier.

That translates to a net loss of 1.26 yuan ($0.18) per American depository share, compared to a loss of 5.57 yuan a year earlier.

(Source: Fashion Network)