Can takeout open up new growth?
Cover I Beanbag AI By I Su Qi By I Fixed Focus ONE
Cover I Doubao AI
Author I Su Qi
Coverage I Focus ONE
At the beginning of this year, Jingdong was quite aggrieved. Obviously 2024 made a lot of money, but the stock price has not risen as much as its rivals.
In the context of the general rise in Chinese stocks, as of the day Jingdong announced to do takeout February 11, Jingdong’s share price in 2025 rose 16 54, Ali’s share price rose 27 31 during the same period, Pinduoduo for 21 13.
The reason is not difficult to deduce, although Jingdong in 2024 for four consecutive quarters to maintain profitability, but the 3C home appliance market by the United States Group flash sale to steal home, the sinking market by Pinduoduo cut off, only rely on traditional e-commerce story is difficult to support its high valuation.
In contrast, rivals have found a new growth curve. Ali relied on AI to slow down, and Pinduoduo’s overseas e-commerce Temu further attacked the city. Thus, Jingdong shouted out the takeaway story and came up with a high profile, taking the lead in paying social security to takeaway workers, lowering commissions for merchants, and subsidizing new users, which has put some pressure on rivals.
This did have an effect, and the capital market began to revalue it. With the new business boost, Jingdong’s share price began to rise. So far this year January 2, 2025 March 6, Jingdong shares rose 31 62, more than Pinduoduo’s 23 94, but still lower than Ali’s 70 51.
On March 6, Jingdong released its latest earnings report, which pulled the stock price upward again. 2024, Jingdong’s net profit was 446 60 billion, up 92 03 year-on-year Revenue was 1 16 trillion yuan, up 6 8 year-on-year. This revenue growth rate outperformed the country’s broader social zero market by 3 5 , and was slightly lower than the broader e-commerce market by 7 2 . As of the close of trading on March 6, Jingdong’s share price rose to HK$165, with a market capitalization of HK$518.9 billion.
In fact, this good news came not suddenly, behind is Jingdong in 2024 stabilized the basic plate of 3C digital home appliances, at the same time reduce the investment in the loss-making business, and in the administrative expenses under strict control.
Jingdong can’t be taken lightly yet. The market is curious as takeaways and instant retail businesses are known to be heavy investment and long-cycle businesses, so will Jingdong still be able to maintain bright profits in 2025? How much patience will management have to invest? More importantly, how far can instant retail take Jingdong in the face of Meituan, HungryMall and Jitterbug?
The way a company tries to stabilize profits is, in layman’s terms, to drive up revenue and spend less.
Let’s look at the income side first. Jingdong’s income is mainly divided into two major blocks, one is commodity income, selling goods income, the other is service income, advertising commissions, logistics income. Among them, merchandise revenue accounts for the bulk of the revenue, in 2024 for 928,007,000,000 yuan, accounting for 80 17 of the total revenue, service revenue of 230,812,000,000 yuan, accounting for 19 83.
Among the merchandise revenue, the general merchandise Electronic products and household appliances merchandise is the lifeblood of Jingdong, supporting half of the total revenue 48 by itself, with an annual year-on-year growth rate of 4 9.
This core revenue has experienced significant volatility over the past two years, mainly because it has become increasingly tied to trade-in activities and promotions, and has fallen as soon as the promotions have ended and the favorable policies have disappeared.
In Q2 2023, its growth rate was as high as 11 4, which was due to the superimposition of 618 and home appliances and household appliances trade-in discounts After the end of the subsidy in Q3, the growth rate fell to 0 By Q4, driven by the double 11, and then recovered.
The situation in 2024 is even more dangerous. This year, in addition to e-commerce rivals continue to open tens of billions of subsidies, the United States Mission and hungry such instant retail players are also staring at the 3C digital and large appliances category, Jingdong’s core turf was impacted, including the 618 promotion of the first time in Q2 4 6 of negative growth.
It wasn’t until August 26, 2024, when Jingdong launched the national subsidy activity of trade-in in more than 20 places across the country, that this part of the revenue was restored. Together with the Double 11 promotion, the growth rate of revenue from the pass-through category reached a new high of 15 8 in Q4. Some merchants told FocusOne that many channels now have state subsidies, and Jingdong’s advantage is the user’s mind and the centralized management of self-owned e-commerce.
Compared with the broader market of the pass-through category of goods, Jingdong’s day hundred category 2024 grew faster, with annual revenue growth reaching 9 2 .
However, in 2023, this category underperformed with three quarters of negative growth, behind which is related to Jingdong’s opening up of 1P self-operated and POP third-party merchant models. Most of the day hundred category is used to Mainly low-priced mind POP merchants, its own revenue is less than the 3C large appliances, plus part of the revenue is also counted in the commission and advertising costs, the size of the revenue is bound to decrease until 2024 to recover.
Daily necessities, although most of the low-margin categories, but the purchase frequency is high, Jingdong Supermarket and Jingdong second delivery of this part of the revenue has played a key role in pulling.
In May 2024, the integration of Jingdong Home and Jingdong Hourly Delivery was upgraded to Jingdong Second Delivery, which was launched on the home page of the Jingdong App, with the fastest 9-minute delivery, and the main focus is on the convenience of supermarkets, self-supporting grocery shopping, and other daily categories.
In Jingdong’s service revenue, platform advertising commission platform and advertising services 2024 revenue of 90.11 billion yuan, a growth rate of 6 4 logistics revenue of 140.701 billion yuan, a growth rate of 9 3.
The recovery of the growth rate of platform advertising commission revenue is related to the stage-by-stage success of Jingdong’s layout of POP merchants.
However, because of the early subsidies to POP merchants Part of the category deduction point decline advertising subsidies, etc. More, coupled with the overall advertising downturn in the e-commerce industry, this part of the revenue until Q4 2024 to really slow down, the growth rate of 12 7 . This may also prove the wait-and-see attitude of POP merchants.
Some merchants told FocusOne that outside of big promotions, the platform’s natural traffic is getting less and less, and even if POP merchants spend money to promote their low-priced products, it’s hard for them to be remembered by users, and the cost can’t be calculated.
E-commerce industry Zhouzhou also pointed out that although Jingdong emphasized that they are the same for self-owned and POP merchants, but Jingdong, whether it is the flow or resources must be given priority to protect the self-owned stores, good POP merchants will also be encouraged to turn into self-owned. Jingdong is both the referee and the athlete, POP merchants are difficult to really mobilize the enthusiasm, which will directly affect the Jingdong advertising and commission income.
In terms of logistics revenue, in 2023, because of the opening of international and domestic routes and the restoration of overseas warehouses, logistics brought two quarters of high-speed growth, and in 2023 Q3, because of the lowering of the parcel amount, low customer unit price led to lower revenue, and the growth rate declined. By the second half of 2024, Jingdong began to tear down the wall with Taotian, pulling up the revenue growth of Jingdong logistics, and the growth rate reached 9 5 by Q4 2024.
Overall, Jingdong will need to stabilize the pass-through category revenue in 2025 to develop the potential of daily hundred and advertising revenue.
In order to ensure profits, in addition to pulling up revenues, it will have to find ways to cut costs and increase efficiency.
Efficiency gains, in the four financial reports of 2024, Jingdong CFO Shan revived all mentioned that the company’s profits benefited from the improvement of gross margins brought about by supply chain efficiency. In other words, Jingdong does not engage in subsidized low prices, but efficiency low prices.
Although Jingdong did not explain in detail how to improve supply chain efficiency, but the industry pointed out that it can be divided into several parts, one is to improve the efficiency of warehousing, sorting and logistics fulfillment to optimize gross profit, the second is to use data forecasting and inventory management to reduce costs, the most important point is to rely on the strong position and depth of binding, in the purchasing process to the supplier to pressure the price, by virtue of the difference in price to obtain profits.
The numbers bear this out, with non-GAAP net margins of 4 1 4 6 5 8 and 3 6 for the four quarters of 2024, exceeding the four-quarter 2023 figure of 3 9 3 6 5 2 3 2 .
However, this also confirms that, between self-operated and POP, self-operated is the direct source of profit, and POP merchants will always be used to expand the product category to cultivate users’ low-price mentality of the supporting role.
In terms of cost reduction, Jingdong has on the one hand reduced its investment in loss-making businesses, and on the other hand saved a large amount of money from administrative expenses.
The new business board in Jingdong’s financial report mainly includes Dada Jingdong production hair Jingxi and overseas business. Said to be new business, which contains is in fact a serious loss of the old business, not only income also contributes less and less, or the company’s only piece of loss-making business.
According to the financial report, in 2024, Jingdong new business revenue accounted for only 1 65, revenue fell 28 03, a total loss of 2.865 billion yuan. 2023, this part of the business loss of only 329 million yuan.
From the point of view of Jingdong’s actions, it tried to minimize the business in which there is no incremental growth Cut down the overseas e-commerce, and in the overseas currently only retains part of the warehousing business. As for the Jingdong Production and Development, which is a smart logistics park, it has also been in a state of contraction and efficiency in the past two years.
In addition, it has a certain amount of investment in businesses that still have prospects, such as Jingxi and Dada, but the overall investment is controllable.
In May 2024, Jingxi announced the launch of a fully managed model and renamed Jingxi Self-Management . Jingxi is a business that Jingdong has been unable to let go of, with the aim of acquiring incremental users in the sinking market and supplementing the white label category. Zhouzhou said, but Jingdong on this business has been a strategic swing Resource dispersion, the new layout of the takeaway business will be further dispersed its traffic, while a high degree of reliance on WeChat traffic Jingxi also be subjected to the competition of the video number of the small store, the future of the Jingxi in the profitability and growth of the future to find a more optimal solution.
In terms of spending money, due to the 2024 e-commerce industry is very competitive, in order to cope with the market competition, Jingdong cast ads to reduce the threshold of the package to develop instant retail, resulting in fulfillment marketing R & D expenditures are rising.
Among them, the marketing expenditure is the most rising, 2024 Jingdong’s marketing expenditure is 47.953 billion yuan, a substantial increase of 19 5 , while in 2021 2023, the expenditure of this item is 38.7 billion yuan 37.8 billion yuan and 40.1 billion yuan respectively.
To ensure profitability, Jingdong has optimized its books by lowering administrative expenses for five consecutive quarters. in 2024, Jingdong’s administrative expenses were slashed by $800 million from the previous year, a year-on-year decline of 8 5 .
It is worth noting that Jingdong increased subsidies and customer acquisition in 2024 for the sake of performance growth, and the cost of fulfillment is also rising, but the revenue growth rate of Jingdong Retail’s core e-commerce segment is less than 10 . Not only that, Jingdong Retail’s operating margins are not rising, only rising slightly from 3 8 in 2023 to 4 0 in 2024. This figure is usually seen as a signal of the strength of the company’s profitability space and competitiveness, and it will be difficult to support the stock price if growth continues to stagnate in 2025.
Self-operated can control profits by regulating the cost of each link, but the ceiling of the profit scale can be seen, it is difficult to surprise the market. Long-term concern about Jingdong investors Qingsong said.
2024, Jingdong’s strategic focus is to hold the profit, now it seems to have realized that only a single indicator of profit, it is difficult to win a high valuation in the capital market. The capital market’s expectation of the enterprise lies not only in the current profit performance, but also in its future growth potential. Thus, Jingdong made a series of new attempts at the beginning of 2025.
On February 11, 2025, Jingdong officially launched the takeaway business and announced that merchants who were stationed before May 1 would be commission-free for the whole year .
At present, Jingdong Takeout has been operating for less than a month, and some of the first batch of merchants stationed in the business said that the number of orders did not meet expectations. In addition, investor Qingsong told FocusOne, most merchants will be the background operation to the operation, in the coupon setting store decoration marketing activities and other aspects of less mature than other platforms, Jingdong takeaway business promotion progress is more aggressive, the first in the north of Guangzhou and other key cities to run through the chain of merchants, and then through the regional agents to gradually promote to the whole country, the spread is easy to growth is difficult, and rivals compared to the Jingdong does not have a special advantage.
Jingdong want to continue to force takeaway and second delivery, the direct pressure is profit.
Jingdong plans to use 5 billion yuan in 2025 for takeout and local city business marketing costs, in addition to plans for takeout business in a year to open 100 cities, the rider team also need to continue to expand.
Jingdong second delivery and takeaway orders are currently delivered by Dada unified delivery, according to Dada financial report, the previous Jingdong second delivery subsidies have sacrificed Dada’s distribution revenue, Jingdong’s investment in takeaway, will continue to increase the burden of Dada. 2024 in the first three quarters, Dada’s net loss of 81.1 billion yuan, the loss of the year-on-year expansion of 20 30 .
Figure source Jingdong second delivery video number
There is also recent news that Jingdong will launch a UK version of its mall in March, and the current product is in internal testing, led by a number of core retail executives. In addition, Jingdong is preparing to build Jingdong MALL in Beijing’s East Third Ring Road, the store site is the location of the former Shuangjing Carrefour, which will be opened during the 618 period.
Jingdong was rumored to have acquired British home appliance retailer Currys, which has more than 820 stores globally, in 2024, although that news has since gone nowhere. Jingdong has also previously invested in a number of British and European fashion and apparel brands, with some visibility, and has the objective conditions to do e-commerce in the UK, but the UK’s current mainstream e-commerce companies include Temu SHEIN and Amazon, which makes competition more difficult.
As for Ali have RT-Mart and Yintai sold, Jingdong why also do offline MALL, in fact, Jingdong offline layout of many self-owned home appliance stores, the purpose is still for the core through the electricity class revenue, consumers can first experience and then order, the offline store can also play the advantages of Jingdong warehouse store one.
A number of industry insiders believe that Jingdong is currently tossed in the direction of the second curve, no matter how you look at it, it looks like a big gamble with profits for stories.
Over the past few years, the label on Jingdong seems to gradually change from wolfish to follow.
Whether it is tens of billions of dollars in subsidies only refunds live broadcast instant retail or takeout, many actions in the right direction, but most of them are followed by the opponents before entering, missing the best time.
At the same time brings another problem Strategy is not focused enough. Jingdong originally with its own model single-handedly to build up the quality of the user’s mind, and later with low-priced strategy of self-subversion original force sinking market and private flow Jingxi, but also engaged in live broadcasting and Li Jiaqi to grab the first and second tier of users Now betting on the takeaway and instant retail, and do not hesitate to use loss-making Dada bet on the future of instant retail. The result may be that internal resources are diluted, and the strategy is more and more shaky. This not only confuses users and merchants, but also makes it difficult for the capital market to see its potential.
I don’t know, 2025 can again see Liu Qiangdong’s wolf cry, after all, now Jingdong wants to re-speed, the more this time, the more can not swing again.
Leave a Reply