On 6 March, JD.com Inc. released its financial report for Q4 and full year 2024. The e-commerce giant earned 347 billion RMB (47.85 billion USD) in Q4, up 13.4% year-on-year (YoY), and its operating profit was 8.5 billion RMB (1.17 billion USD), a YoY increase of 319.3%.
This caused the revenue of the full year 2024 to grow 6.8% YoY for JD.com to a whopping 1.16 trillion RMB (159.98 billion USD) with operating profit up 48.8% to 38.7 billion RMB (5.34 billion USD), a profit rate margin of 3.3 %. Net income attributable to shareholders reached 41.4 billion RMB (5.71 billion USD), up 71.1% YoY.
With double-digit increases in Q4 of last year, Sandy Ran Xu, the CEO of JD.com, notes that incomes from most categories, the number of active users and the frequency of transactions also achieved healthy double-digit YoY uplift. Many analyses point to the national, regional and platform subsidies for electrical appliances as the main driving force behind the rally in Q3 and Q4 last year. JD.com sold 174.15 billion RMB (24.02 billion USD) worth of electrical appliances in the fourth quarter, up 15.8% from the previous year.
The market welcomed the pleasant surprise as the news caused JD.com shares to surge 10% before trading. However, some pundits have found that JD.com achieved its high revenue with subsidies from the platform and the appliances and consumer electronics authorities. They also say that JD.com’s profit mostly came from cuts to the less profitable business branches. Indeed, the 2024 strategy was to prioritise profitability. This might run afoul with its latest venture into food delivery, the rumoured expansion into the UK after acquiring Currys and other attempts to quicken progress. How JD.com will balance profit and growth in the new year is certainly worth watching.
Need to boost your China strategy? Dao Pro delivers bespoke insights on marketing, innovation, and digital trends, direct from Chinese sources. Find out more from our Dao Strategy Team here.
