In the e-commerce market characterized by stock competition, JD.com is attempting a strategic gamble to strike a balance between short-term growth and long-term capability building.

On November 13, JD Group reported quarterly revenue of 299.1 billion yuan, marking a 14.9% year-on-year increase and maintaining double-digit growth for four consecutive quarters.

Behind this surface growth, however, JD.com is undergoing a profound strategic transformation—net profit plummeted 54.7% year-on-year, the largest decline in recent years.

This contradictory performance reflects JD.com's strategic choice in China's current stock-competitive e-commerce era: sacrificing short-term profits for long-term capability building, all centered around a core vision—leveraging a "super supply chain" to integrate all its businesses into an ecosystem, forming a future moat.

Yet, between short-term performance fluctuations and long-term moat formation, JD.com still faces ongoing market scrutiny.

**Revenue Growth of 14.9%, But Heavy Investments Persist** JD.com's Q3 2025 financial report presents a typical "revenue growth without profit growth" scenario, indicating its current high-investment phase.

Revenue for the quarter reached 299.1 billion yuan, up 14.9% year-on-year, exceeding market expectations and marking JD.com's fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth.

However, while revenue grew steadily, net profit fell 54.7% year-on-year to 5.3 billion yuan. Non-GAAP net profit stood at 5.8 billion yuan, also a significant drop from 13.2 billion yuan in the same period last year.

This divergence between growth and profit stems primarily from JD.com's strategic investments in new businesses, particularly food delivery. In Q3, operating losses for new businesses, including food delivery, widened sharply to 15.7 billion yuan from 600 million yuan a year earlier.

Notably, despite the large absolute loss, the operating loss margin for new businesses improved to 100.9% from 106.7% in Q2, signaling gradual optimization of its unit economics.

**Retail Remains the Anchor** JD Retail continued to play a stabilizing role, with Q3 revenue rising 11.4% year-on-year to 250.6 billion yuan. Operating profit grew 27.6% to 14.8 billion yuan, while the operating profit margin expanded to 5.9% (vs. 5.2% a year ago), reflecting efficiency improvements in JD.com's core retail business.

JD Logistics also delivered strong results, with revenue up 24.1% year-on-year to 55.1 billion yuan, maintaining dual growth in revenue and profit.

**New Businesses in Focus** The new business segment was the most closely watched in this quarter's report. Revenue surged 213.7% year-on-year to 15.6 billion yuan. However, CEO Xu Ran emphasized during the earnings call: "This year, we waived commissions for merchants, so commission income is relatively low. Additionally, new businesses have only begun generating limited ad revenue." This suggests significant room for future revenue growth in this segment.

**Cost Structure Shifts** Behind the profit decline lies a changing cost structure.

JD.com's marketing expenses jumped 110.5% year-on-year to 21.1 billion yuan in Q3, with the marketing expense ratio rising from 3.8% to 7.0%. The report attributed this increase mainly to promotional spending for new businesses.

Fulfillment expenses grew 35.2% to 22 billion yuan, accounting for 7.4% of revenue (vs. 6.3% a year ago). R&D spending increased 28.4% to 5.6 billion yuan, underscoring JD.com's continued commitment to technology investments.

**User Growth Reflects Strategy** Xu Ran noted that JD.com's annual active users surpassed 700 million in October 2025, a new milestone. More importantly, user purchase frequency saw robust growth, with active users and purchase frequency both increasing over 40% year-on-year this quarter.

Food delivery is playing an increasingly prominent role in user growth. Management revealed that new user conversion rates from food delivery are rising monthly, with nearly 50% of early adopters transitioning to other JD.com services—a sign of growing synergies.

Service revenue was another highlight, growing 30.8% year-on-year in Q3 to a two-year high, with its share of total revenue reaching a record 24.4%.

As of September 30, 2025, JD.com held 210.5 billion yuan in cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, and short-term investments, maintaining solid liquidity.

**Weaving a "Super Supply Chain" Across All Businesses?** This year, JD.com has emerged as the most dynamic variable among China's internet giants, frequently venturing into new domains.

From a traditional financial perspective, new business investments have clearly pressured JD.com's short-term Q3 performance—evident in the steep profit decline, rising marketing expenses, and heavy losses in new ventures, all key concerns for investors.

Strategically, however, JD.com is trading these near-term costs for long-term growth potential. Expanding user scale and engagement, higher service revenue contribution, and early signs of cross-business synergies lay the groundwork for future development.

Founder Liu Qiangdong has repeatedly stressed: "All JD.com's businesses serve one purpose—the supply chain." This reveals the underlying logic behind JD.com's diversified ventures.

A supply chain isn't linear but a network. JD.com's supply chain capabilities already span warehousing, delivery, inventory management, data forecasting, and more—and these aren't limited to standardized goods.

High-frequency, short-chain, instant delivery scenarios like food delivery hone last-mile efficiency, while system integration, service fulfillment, and dynamic pricing for hotel/flight bookings represent "non-physical goods" supply chain management.

Since committing to technological transformation in 2017, JD.com's supply chain infrastructure assets totaled 174.3 billion yuan by Q3 2025.

Technology is pivotal to this super supply chain. This year, JD.com has significantly invested in AI and robotics. During the recent Singles' Day festival, JoyAI and logistics brain models fully integrated with supply chain operations.

Instant retail—a major focus—serves as the latest testing ground for super supply chain capabilities. These high-frequency, essential scenarios can effectively boost platform-wide engagement, precisely JD.com's objective.

JD.com's self-operated food delivery service "7Fresh Kitchen" is expanding rapidly, with searches and orders surging over 350% and 400% week-on-week during Singles' Day's first week.

Xu Ran emphasized that food delivery is a long-term strategy: "Ultimately, it must stand alone as a business, while deeply rooting itself within JD.com's broader ecosystem."

Meanwhile, 7Fresh supermarkets are accelerating expansion via a "1 hub store + N satellite stores" model, using supply chain innovation to balance the "quality, speed, price" trilemma of instant retail.

Globally, JD.com's super supply chain is extending its reach. Leveraging its supply chain and international logistics network, JD Worldwide now covers 36 countries, with Joybuy piloting in key European markets like the UK, France, and Germany.

**A Strategic Crossroads** JD.com's Q3 performance paints a picture of an e-commerce giant in profound transition. While markets worry about sustained profit declines and heavy external investments, the long-term value of its super supply chain remains underappreciated in financial statements.

The company's strategic resolve faces the test of time. As Liu Qiangdong stated: "We're not planning for three to five years—this is a ten- to twenty-year endeavor."

In today's instant-gratification business environment, such long-termism represents JD.com's greatest risk—and potentially, the key to building an irreplicable moat.