JD Posts Strong Q4 and Optimistic on Outlook

Bejing-based e-commerce giant JD.com released their fourth quarter and full year results for 2019 and the company’s share price skyrocketed 12.44% to a two-year high of $43.30. The company surpassed the high end of their guidance range posting quarterly revenue of 170.7 billion yuan.

SEE ALSO: JD.com Reports Overall Growth in Second Quarter 2019

In addition, the annual active customers on JD increased by 19% to 362 million users over the course of 2019. The company generated net income of 576.9 billion yuan in 2019, a year-on-year increase of 24.9%. JD’s CFO Sidney Huang is retiring in September and Sandy Xu will take over the role. The transition of responsibility will begin in June.

During the COVID-19 epidemic, JD’s in-house logistics model has been one of two logistics operators that customers have come to rely on, along with SF Express. JD’s mobile DAUs increased by 38% in Q4, the largest growth in eight quarters. Over 70% of new customers to JD’s platform were from lower tier cities, as e-commerce continues to penetrate China’s more rural regions.

During the earnings call, CEO Richard Liu provided details on the company’s ongoing cooperation efforts with the Hubei local government, both in terms of logistics and digital infrastructure support. Despite the challenges to business from COVID-19 outbreak, JD projected at least 10% revenue growth for the first quarter of 2020, touting a more optimistic tone than rival Alibaba’s recent earnings report which warned greater disruptions to their business.

JD.com released Jingxi in September of 2019, a group buying platform to rival e-commerce Pinduoduo’s social buying model. The company revealed on the call that the platform now receives over 1 million orders per day.