CHINESE e-commerce group JD.com missed market estimates for quarterly revenue on Thursday (Nov 14), as a persistent slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy pressured consumers to keep a tight hold on their purse strings.
JD.com’s US shares fell 1.2 per cent in pre-market trading.
A prolonged property sector crisis, a macroeconomic slowdown and heightened job insecurity have hammered consumer confidence in China, hurting retail sales and resulting in a bruising price war among major e-commerce platforms.
JD.com has been working to improve its share of sales from high-growth livestreamed e-commerce, as well as exploring international business growth, but trails rivals such as Alibaba in livestreaming and Temu-owner PDD Holdings in tapping overseas sales.
While the Chinese government has outlined stimulus measures to prop up economic growth, the lack of solid steps to boost consumption has also weighed on sentiment.
JD.com said total revenue rose 5.1 per cent to 260.4 billion yuan (S$48.4 billion) in the third quarter, compared with estimates of 261.45 billion yuan, according to LSEG data.
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Net income attributable to JD.com’s ordinary shareholders stood at 11.7 billion yuan in the July-to-September period, an increase of 47.8 per cent from a year earlier.
This period coincides with a traditional lull in Chinese consumption between major shopping festivals in June and November.
A bid to lure more customers in one of the year’s quietest shopping periods in China may be behind an increase of 25.7 per cent for marketing expenses, which reached 10 billion yuan or 3.8 per cent of net revenue for the quarter, compared to 3.2 per cent a year earlier.
China’s Singles’ Day sales period, a nationwide sales promotion event typically seen as a gauge of consumer sentiment, ran from Oct 14 to Nov 11 this year, 10 days longer than last year. That resulted in a 26.6 per cent rise in sales across all major e-commerce platforms, according to data provider Syntun.
This year’s sales saw larger ticket household appliances perform better than last year, benefiting from a national 150 billion yuan trade-in subsidy scheme announced in July to help boost consumption.
JD.com has been a major proponent of the initiative and since August has launched trade-in programmes for over 20 provinces and cities across China as part of the central government’s intiative. REUTERS
