Yesterday, JD.com released its second-quarter financial results, becoming the first company to reveal its hand after the "food delivery war." The financial performance presented a tale of two extremes.

Let's start with the positive side. In the second quarter, JD Group achieved revenue of 356.7 billion yuan, representing a 22.4% year-over-year increase. JD's retail business remains the cornerstone, contributing substantially to the group's performance.

During the second quarter, JD Retail generated revenue of 310.1 billion yuan, up 20.6% year-over-year, shouldering nearly 90% of the group's revenue burden. The gross margin has maintained growth for 13 consecutive quarters, demonstrating the company's continued excellence in supply chain management. JD Retail alone produced 13.9 billion yuan in operating profit during the quarter, achieving the highest operating profit margin in the company's history for a promotional quarter, earning it MVP status for the season.

Specifically, the second quarter coincided with the 618 shopping festival, combined with government subsidies and trade-in policies, driving strong performance in 3C electronics, home appliances, and daily necessities.

While it's difficult to quantify exactly how much JD's food delivery service contributed to e-commerce business conversion, one notable metric shows that JD's quarterly active users and shopping frequency both achieved over 40% year-over-year growth in the second quarter, with food delivery playing a significant role.

Additionally, JD Logistics, the veteran division, remained reassuring. With second-quarter revenue of 51.56 billion yuan, while not particularly spectacular, it certainly wasn't disappointing, steadily contributing 1.958 billion yuan in operating profit. Particularly noteworthy is the overseas warehouse expansion across 23 countries and regions, including the launch of "JoyExpress" delivery brand in Saudi Arabia, introducing Middle Eastern customers to JD's traditional same-day and next-day delivery capabilities.

With retail business and JD Logistics providing support, JD's fundamental business remains relatively stable.

Regarding new businesses, which include JD's food delivery service, the segment achieved revenue of 13.85 billion yuan in the second quarter, up 198.8% year-over-year. During the 618 period, JD's food delivery service capitalized on the momentum, with daily order volume breaking through 25 million orders. Current statistics show over 1.5 million merchants have joined JD's food delivery platform, and by the end of the second quarter, JD's full-time delivery workforce exceeded 150,000 people.

This aggressive spending-for-market-share strategy undoubtedly shows rapid results. While the numbers look impressive on the surface, JD Group paid a significant price for this growth.

Although new businesses include JD Property Development, JD Worldwide, and overseas operations beyond food delivery, the most aggressive spender remains JD's food delivery service.

Since officially announcing its entry into food delivery in February, JD has maintained continuous activity over the past six months. The company launched with "zero commission" sincerity and committed to providing five social insurances and housing fund for delivery riders. The CEO personally participated in food delivery operations and treated delivery workers to hot pot, generating considerable goodwill through this publicity campaign.

JD's food delivery platform offered coffee and bubble tea for five or six yuan, which consumers frequently enjoyed, along with free meal compensation for deliveries delayed by twenty minutes. This combination of strategies inevitably required substantial investment.

To put it simply, while gaining market presence and brand recognition, the CEO invested over ten billion yuan in a single quarter.

In the first quarter, when food delivery business wasn't fully deployed, new business operating losses were only 1.327 billion yuan. However, after the second quarter "food delivery war" fully commenced, new business losses skyrocketed to 14.8 billion yuan.

What does this mean? Every day, the company burns through 164 million yuan, representing a true billion-yuan subsidy program that speaks for itself.

Rough calculations show that with 25 million daily orders and over ten billion yuan in losses, the average loss per order amounts to five or six yuan.

The consequence is that the group's net profit attributable to ordinary shareholders fell by more than half year-over-year. This also dragged down the entire group's second-quarter operating profit. Last year's second-quarter operating profit was 10.5 billion yuan, but this year showed a loss of nearly 900 million yuan, essentially negating most of the profits painstakingly earned by JD Retail and JD Logistics.

However, during the earnings call, JD management mentioned plans to "promote cross-selling between food delivery, instant retail, and B2C e-commerce." Translated, this means: don't just order food delivery from us, consider purchasing other items as well.

While the idea sounds promising, JD's food delivery service cannot rely indefinitely on subsidies from the retail business. If this billion-yuan subsidy intensity continues, the profits that retail operations extract from supply chain efficiencies will be burned away on the back end.

JD's absence from last month's most intense "food delivery war" indicates they don't intend to participate in further destructive subsidization. Despite initially starting the food delivery conflict, JD chose to observe while Meituan and Taobao continued their aggressive competition.

While JD's food delivery appears to have fallen behind, the ten-billion-plus investment at least generated market awareness. Moving forward, success depends on how JD integrates food delivery with instant retail and e-commerce operations.

Last month, Goldman Sachs analyzed the "food delivery war," predicting that Meituan, JD.com, and Alibaba's combined food delivery investments would reach 25 billion yuan in the second quarter this year. The analysis forecasted that from July this year to June next year, Alibaba's food delivery business would lose 41 billion yuan, JD would lose 26 billion yuan, and Meituan's EBIT would decrease by 25 billion yuan.

This analysis suggests an intensely competitive landscape. Combined with JD's financial report, the eventual winner of the "food delivery war" may not emerge easily victorious.

Honestly, anticipation is building for Meituan's second-quarter financial report.