BEIJING: Wal-Mart’s primary e-commerce partner in China increased sales on its e-commerce site 47% to nearly $95 billion in 2016. Although its growth has slowed, JD.com, Inc., the top online retailer in China based on sales of its own goods to consumers, still grew much faster than the average 26.2% growth rate for all Chinese e-retailers in 2016. The total value of goods sold on JD.com, which includes sales of merchandise it owns and sales by other merchants selling on JD.com, increased 46.4% to 209.7 billion yuan ($30.4 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2016 from 143.2 billion yuan ($20.8 billion) in Q4 2015. For the full year of 2016, consumers purchased 658.2 billion yuan ($94.8 billion) worth of products on JD.com, an increase of 47.0% from 447.8 billion yuan ($64.8 billion) a year earlier.
JD.com, the China e-commerce partner of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., reported its net revenue grew 47.1% to 80.3 billion ($11.6 billion) in Q4 2016 from 54.6 billion yuan ($7.91 billion) in the last quarter of 2015 due to the strong performance of shopping events in the November and the December holiday season. JD.com, China’s No.1 retailer in the Internet Retailer 2016 China 500 by web sales of merchandise it owns, also substantially narrowed its loss in the fourth quarter of 2016 to 441.6 million yuan ($61.8 million) from 4.2 billion yuan ($588 million) during the same period last year. (Alibaba Group’s online marketplaces account for a majority of online retail sales in China, but the Taobao and Tmall shopping portals are not included in the China 500 because Alibaba does not own any of the merchandise sold, as all sales are by marketplace sellers.)
“We’re delighted to report very strong top- and bottom-line growth for the quarter, and margins continued to benefit from the rapidly expanding scale of the JD.com platform,” Sidney Huang, chief financial officer of JD.com, said in a statement. “We remain committed to investing in technology, including AI [artificial intelligence] and big data, to drive long-term sustainable growth across our established and emerging business areas.” JD.com has become a major channel for overseas brands and retailer to introduce their products into China. During the last quarter of 2016, JD.com reported it had signed partnership agreements with French spirits company Remy Cointreau Group, Japan’s skin care brand DHC, U.S. toy manufacturer Mattel and Korean cosmetics brand Too Cool for School.
JD.com’s total number of users also expanded in the past year. The company reported the number of active customer accounts increased by 46% to 226.6 million in 2016. A quarter of of new users came from mobile social media operator WeChat and QQ, both operated by Tencent Group, a leading internet company in China that’s closely allied with JD.com. JD.com also deepened its collaboration with U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart, which last year raised its stake in JD.com to 10%. Wal-Mart opened an online store on JD.com’s marketplace for its membership grocery chain Sam’s Club in the last quarter of 2016, according to JD.com. The e-retailer also has connected with 58 Wal-Mart stores in China to help those stores sell grocery products to nearby online shoppers.
