Despite investments in new businesses such as food delivery and the intense 618 shopping festival promotion, JD.com delivered strong growth results for the second quarter of this year.

On August 14, JD.com released its Q2 2025 results, with quarterly revenue of 356.7 billion yuan, representing a year-over-year growth of 22.4%, once again setting a new record for year-over-year growth rate over the past three years. Behind this high revenue growth, JD.com is driving a "local lifestyle" supply chain innovation, reshaping the platform economy landscape through synergies with its core retail business.

"In the second quarter, JD.com's platform user traffic, quarterly active users, and user purchase frequency all achieved significant growth, mainly benefiting from the continued momentum of our core JD retail business and new businesses such as food delivery," said Xu Ran, CEO of JD.com Group. She also stated, "Looking ahead, as we continue to focus on user experience, cost, and efficiency, we believe our core retail business will always be the cornerstone of JD.com's business portfolio, while we will also continue to invest in new growth areas according to our long-term strategic plans."

**Food Delivery Rejects Internal Competition**

JD.com's food delivery service, launched less than six months ago, has attracted significant external attention this year. According to the financial report, in Q2 this year, new business revenue including JD food delivery reached 13.85 billion yuan, a year-over-year increase of approximately 200%. Additionally, during this year's 618 period, JD food delivery's daily order volume exceeded 25 million orders, with over 1.5 million quality merchants onboard. Currently, JD food delivery covers 350 cities nationwide with over 150,000 full-time delivery riders.

JD.com, which has shown restraint in the recent intense food delivery market competition, has once again clarified its anti-internal competition stance. Xu Ran stated in the conference call on the evening of August 14 that food delivery and instant retail are important strategic directions for JD.com, with the goal of establishing a sustainable business model rather than pursuing short-term results. "Since July, industry competition has intensified, but from JD.com's perspective, we believe excessive competition has not brought model innovation nor created incremental value for the industry. Instead, it has disrupted the pricing system to some extent and caused trouble for merchants. Such behavior is unsustainable."

She indicated that JD food delivery focuses more on improving platform systems and enhancing the experience for users, merchants, and riders. This means that in the three-way competition of the food delivery market, JD food delivery's current focus remains on building internal supply chain capabilities.

JD.com Group founder and Chairman Liu Qiangdong pointed out in his speech before 618 that almost all of JD.com's businesses now revolve around the supply chain. "If something is unrelated to the supply chain, I never do it."

The supply chain capabilities that JD.com's retail business has accumulated over the long term, including local warehousing capabilities, Dada's network of 1.3 million riders, and front-end warehouse models, can all be reused as infrastructure for the food delivery business while amortizing upfront construction costs.

JD food delivery's supply chain innovation also extends offline. In July this year, JD.com's self-operated Qixian Kitchen was officially launched. Unlike the industry's common "landlord" model, Qixian Kitchen's rent, labor, and operational costs are all funded by JD.com. Its first Beijing store achieved over 1,000 daily orders within one week of launch, with a repeat purchase rate 220% higher than the industry average, driving a 12% month-over-month growth in total orders for thousands of restaurants within a 3-kilometer radius.

Additionally, Qixian Kitchen launched a "Dish Partner" program, receiving over 66,000 applications by the end of July. JD.com plans to build 10,000 Qixian Kitchen locations nationwide within three years, helping quality restaurants escape operational pressures and achieve scaled sales.

**Business Synergies Meet Initial Expectations**

The traffic-driving effect of JD food delivery has become evident. According to the financial report, in Q2 this year, JD.com's quarterly active users and shopping frequency both achieved over 40% year-over-year growth, with quarterly active users achieving double-digit year-over-year growth for seven consecutive quarters.

JD.com Group CFO Shan Su also stated in the financial report conference on the evening of August 14 that JD food delivery has brought new growth drivers to JD.com's overall traffic, users, and frequency. Furthermore, the food delivery business has also brought more young users to JD.com, with JD PLUS members' purchase frequency growing over 50% year-over-year in Q2 this year.

Meanwhile, as a high-frequency consumption service addressing users' daily meal needs, the surge in food delivery orders has not only increased the frequency of users opening the JD.com app but also driven consumption in retail categories such as daily necessities. Liu Qiangdong previously revealed that JD food delivery has a 40% cross-selling rate with e-commerce.

Xu Ran also stated in the financial report conference that the food delivery business is rooted in JD.com's overall business ecosystem. After more than a quarter of operations, food delivery and core e-commerce businesses are generating synergistic value, which aligns with JD.com's initial expectations. She also revealed that JD.com has built capabilities in algorithms and systems to promote cross-shopping in the second quarter, with related tools to be launched gradually in the third quarter. Additionally, food delivery and retail businesses have significant synergistic potential in market placement and marketing expenses, with teams coordinating to measure ROI across channels and improve overall marketing efficiency.

It's worth noting that investment scale is an important consideration every company faces when expanding new businesses. Shan Su stated in the above-mentioned financial report conference that JD.com will focus on the ROI of new businesses and dynamically balance based on investment results. He also believes that the core thinking behind JD.com's investment in new businesses is to further break through growth ceilings. "We believe this will bring long-term growth in user GMV and profits. The upfront investment and deployment cycle will temporarily affect the group's profit margins in the short term. In the long run, new businesses will gradually transform into new growth drivers, generating greater synergistic value with core businesses and ultimately creating larger profit margins."

**Retail Business Remains Stable Anchor**

Although the food delivery market is particularly hot, retail remains JD.com's most core anchor business. According to the financial report, JD retail recorded revenue of 310.1 billion yuan in Q2 this year, a year-over-year increase of 20.6%, accounting for 87% of JD.com's total revenue for the period. Its operating profit of 13.9 billion yuan grew 37.6% year-over-year, with an operating profit margin of 4.5% setting the highest record in JD.com's history for all promotional quarters.

During the period, JD.com's flagship electronics category revenue approached 179 billion yuan, growing 23.4% year-over-year. Additionally, JD.com's daily necessities category revenue approached 103.5 billion yuan, accelerating growth by 16.4% year-over-year, with the supermarket category maintaining double-digit year-over-year revenue growth for six consecutive quarters.

The self-operated model with deep supply chain control is becoming JD.com's differentiated competitive advantage in the daily necessities retail market, helping it continuously reduce procurement costs, improve efficiency, and bring users better products at lower prices.

JD.com is also expanding this capability externally. Recently, JD.com officially completed its acquisition of Hong Kong's Kai Bo Food Supermarket. Both parties plan to leverage JD.com's supply chain advantages to promote Kai Bo's omnichannel business expansion, further enrich the quality product supply in Hong Kong's retail consumption market, and advance JD.com's fresh supply chain layout in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Furthermore, when discussing future growth strategies for the daily necessities category, Xu Ran also mentioned that facing the huge traffic brought by the food delivery business, JD.com's supermarket category will also optimize its operations to better serve the needs of these food delivery users.

"We believe instant retail is a complement to various consumption scenarios, meeting users' needs for emergency products. However, in terms of product richness and cost-effectiveness, traditional core e-commerce businesses still have greater advantages. Our supermarket category or supermarket team will actively deploy instant retail to further enrich users' multi-scenario needs. At the same time, in core e-commerce businesses, we will continue to build and strengthen our operational capabilities," Xu Ran said.