Global e-commerce is expected to reach $6.5 trillion in sales by 2024 and Jingdong mall, better known as JD.com, is one of the top six e-commerce players in the world showing a strong growth outlook, according to Activate Tech and Media Outlook’s forecast.
JD.com‘s growth is the result of a mix of strategic choices made at the right time. These are three main lessons from JD.com.
Lesson 1: “Attack is the secret of defense, defense is the planning of an attack” – Sun Tzu
In 2018, JD.com signed a $ 550 million deal with Google.
The investment saw Google getting 27.1 million newly issued JD.com Class A ordinary shares, which was approximately 1% of the Chinese group’s capital, at an issue price of $20.29 per share. What to some seemed “simply” a defense against the competition of Alibaba, was instead part of a much more ambitious strategy. In fact, being able to count on Google’s search & analytics technology, it became possible for Jingdong to open to new markets, also in Europe and in the US. “This partnership with Google opens up a broad range of possibilities to offer a superior retail experience to consumers throughout the world”- commented Jianwen Liao, the chief strategy officer of JD.com.
Lesson 2: Seize opportunities during hard times.
In 2019-20, the fear of a non-deal Brexit made it necessary for British businesses to open to extra European companies. So, the race to the European market also took place thanks to the collaboration with the British e-commerce platform Farfetch, with which JD.com closed an agreement for 309 million dollars, and with Church’s, a British shoe brand belonging to the Prada group.
After opening its horizons to these new markets, in June 2020 JD.com launched an initial public offering (IPO) on the Hong Kong exchanges & clearing limited (HKex) index, raising about 3.8 billion dollars in the listing (the second in its history, being the company already listed on the Nasdaq since 2014).
Lesson 3: The importance of single units to satisfy specific needs.
JD Health, a subsidiary of JD.com, was among the platforms offering consultation for COVID-19 symptoms at the most critical stage of the coronavirus outbreak, in 2020.
In December, JD Health raised $ 3.48 billion and earned an initial valuation of $ 29 billion through an IPO.
After a secondary listing for JD.com and the JD Health IPO, Jingdong now plans a public offering of its logistics unit, which will be the third public offering of its business empire within nine months.
According to a report by Bloomberg, JD.com is expected to raise about $ 5 billion by floating shares of the logistics unit, with the total value of JD Logistics reaching $ 40 billion. The second Chinese e-commerce company has already communicated that even after the offering, JD.com will continue to hold more than 50% of its logistic unit.
The listing of JD Logistics is expected to provide the company the necessary cash to modernize and upgrade its delivery army, suggesting that JD.com will continue to be a fundamental player in the e-commerce industry, with a growing role also out of the Chinese borders.
Credits to:
Riccardo Cantadori
Beatrice Xia
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