JD.com’s first-quarter sales beat estimates as price cuts pay off for e-commerce giant

JD.com on Thursday beat analysts’ estimates to report a 7 per cent increase in first-quarter sales, nearly a year after the Chinese e-commerce giant doubled down on a strategy to support more small merchants selling cheap goods on its platform amid increased industry competition and weak domestic consumption.

The Beijing-based company said revenue rose to 260 billion yuan (US$36 billion) in the March quarter, from about 243 billion yuan a year earlier, on the back of electronics, home appliances, general merchandise and logistics services income. That was ahead of the 257.72 billion yuan average forecast from 21 analysts’ estimates compiled by the London Stock Exchange Group.

“The year 2024 is marked with execution, and we are already seeing measurable results across the business,” chief executive Sandy Xu Ran said in a statement released after the market closed. “In the first quarter, our focus on user experience helped to drive strong growth in the number of active users as well as user engagement.”

JD.com’s shares in Hong Kong closed 2.56 per cent higher to HK$132.40 on Thursday. Its US-listed shares, meanwhile, were up about 3 per cent in premarket trading and have climbed more than 16 per cent this year.

The company’s latest quarterly financial results reflect the expansion of China’s online retail market in the first quarter, when total sales rose 12.4 per cent year on year to 3.3 trillion yuan, largely driven by service-based consumption, according to data published last month by the Ministry of Commerce.