Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com Inc beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue on Tuesday as lockdowns in China to control the coronavirus boosted online shopping and the company’s “618” shopping event.
The company reported second-quarter revenue of US$39.07bn, up 5.4 per cent year on year, topping analysts’ average estimate of 262.31bn yuan, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. Revenue rose 11 in the first half to 507.3 billion yuan.
Sales in its product segment, which includes online retail sales, rose 2.9 per cent in the quarter, while those from services such as logistics and marketing jumped 21.9 per cent.
Zephirin Group analyst Lenny Zephirin said JD.com is in a class of its own as timely contractual agreements with luxury brands were key to its profit beat in the quarter.
“We expect management to continue to push further into the Luxury categories for the upcoming holiday quarters, (particularly) the fourth quarter. The logistics segment should show a gradual improvement this quarter despite Covid-19 lockdowns,” he said.
“The second quarter is the most challenging quarter since we’re listed,” JD.com Chief Executive Xu Lei said on a call with analysts before the US market opened. He said the challenges were mainly due to the pandemic.
