JD.Com Inc

HKEX:9618

Q1-2025 Earnings Call

[Operator]

Hello, and thank you for standing by for JD.com's First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's conference, Sean Zhang, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

Thank you. Good day, everyone. Welcome to JD.com Q1 2025 Earnings Conference Call. With us today is CEO of JD.com, Ms. Sandy Xu. She will kick off the call with her opening remarks; and our CFO, Ms. Ian Shan, will discuss the financial results. Then we will open the call to questions from analysts.

Before turning the call over to Sandy, let me quickly cover the safe harbor. Please be reminded that during this call, our comments and responses to your questions reflect management's view as of today only and will include forward-looking statements. So please refer to our latest safe harbor statement in the earnings press release on our IR website, which applies to this call. We'll discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. So please refer to the reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP measure in the earnings press release. Please also note, all figures mentioned in this call are in RMB, unless otherwise stated.

So now let me turn the call over to our CEO, Sandy. Sandy, please?

[Xu Ran, executive]

Thank you, Sean. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining our earnings conference call today. Our business maintained robust momentum in the last quarter of 2024, and kicked off 2025 with an even stronger set of results in Q1. Our total revenues were up 16% year-on-year, a further acceleration from the prior quarter with healthy growth across the board. We meaningfully outpaced total retail sales and online retail sales of physical goods in the same quarter. We continued to enhance our supply chain capabilities and solidified market leadership in our electronics and home appliances category, while further tapping into the vast market potential in the general merchandise category and building up our user mindshare.

Our business also continued to see healthy profit growth during the quarter. Our non-GAAP net profit was up 43% year-on-year to RMB 12.8 billion, with net margin expanding by 82 bps to 4.2%. This was primarily driven by year-over-year improvement in our gross margin, a trend that we've sustained for 12 quarters in a row, as our team continues to focus on driving best-in-class user experience, lower cost and higher efficiency.

Let's first look at our category performance. We saw continued healthy demand for electronics and home appliances on our platform in Q1, leading to a further acceleration in revenue growth to 17% year-over-year. The healthy demand in this category demonstrates the underlying strength and vast potential of domestic consumption as well as JD's unparalleled strength in supply chain and user mindshare. JD's business model enables us to seize structural opportunities in the industry. Driven by the government's consumption stimulus policies, the innovation of technologies and continuous rollout of new product models, we are confident to generate more vitality and resilience in our long-term growth in electronics and home appliances.

Moving on to general merchandise. In Q1, revenue growth here also accelerated sequentially to 15% year-on-year. To break this down, supermarket category revenue growth hit double digits for the fifth consecutive quarter. In particular, it had a robust promotion season during the Chinese Lunar New Year with revenues and users both on a solid growth trajectory. The momentum of supermarket category is expected to carry on throughout 2025. This performance is the result of continued refinements across every stage of our retail supply chain from enhanced procurement capabilities and improved fulfillment efficiency to a stronger user experience and increased user mindshare. Supermarket offers massive market scale with fragmented players and relatively low online penetration. So we see a lot of headroom to step up our growth and profit improvement in this key category.

Our fashion category further accelerated revenue growth in Q1, driven by a continually enhanced assortment of brands and merchants, along with growing user recognition. Supported by our differentiated road map to scale our fashion business scale and strengthen user mindshare, we anticipate strong operational tailwinds throughout the year. We expect supermarket, fashion and other high potential growth categories within general merchandise, which we are only beginning to unlock to further propel our long-term growth trajectory.

Moving on to user growth and engagement, another bright spot in Q1. During the quarter, our quarterly active customer number was up double digits year-on-year with increased average user shopping frequency and notable acceleration. JD Plus recorded double-digit year-on-year growth in both shopping frequency and ARPU in Q1. Overall, we are pleased with the robust user traction we have attained. It's a reflection of the strong momentum of our core retail business and our ever-enhancing user experience. We constantly review and always strive to improve our user experience.

Particularly in Q1, our team tackled a number of sticking points to further streamline our aftersales services and continued to increase AI adoption to improve efficiency and personalization of search and recommendation, AI shopping guide consultation as well as delivery and aftersales services, among others. We believe our user momentum will get stronger as we continue to optimize user experience and work on user synergies across our businesses. We've also made steady progress in executing our low price strategy and building out our 3P ecosystem.

In Q1, our Net Promoter Score, the NPS, on price competitiveness improved both year-on-year and sequentially, demonstrating that our low-price efforts are better resonating with our users. Growth of order volume and user base in lower-tier markets also continued to outpace that of higher-tier markets on our platform. On the 3P ecosystem side, as we further expanded merchant base and product offerings, both our 3P order volume and 3P buyers increased strongly year-on-year. This momentum also contributed to the robust growth of our marketplace and marketing revenues, which were up 16% year-on-year in Q1, a meaningful pickup compared to preceding quarters.

Over the years, we've built a very robust and scaled retail business with strong supply chain capabilities and best-in-class user experience. Retail remains the cornerstone of JD and serves as the foundation from which we will continue to pursue more exciting growth opportunities. One recent notable opportunity is our rapid growing food delivery business.

Starting from core retail, JD is expanding into on-demand retail, meeting users' diverse needs in different shopping scenarios. Food delivery has the highest shopping frequency and contributes the majority of orders within on-demand retail. Moreover, food delivery is a vast market with abundant untapped demand and opportunities, and JD has the right culture strength, including the established system, fulfillment network, talent as well as business model to effectively address these demands.

It's important to note that at JD, we do not see food delivery as a stand-alone business. It's deeply rooted and well-integrated into JD's robust retail infrastructure and ecosystem, a pivotal differentiator. In a very brief time, JD Food Delivery has made remarkable headway in the aspects of order volume, onboarded merchants and riders. In particular, as we speak, JD Food Delivery order volume today is reaching close to 20 million orders, another important milestone that we expect to surpass very soon. This demonstrates our incentive strategies and strong execution at the right time. On-demand retail with food delivery included will generate powerful synergies with our core retail and other businesses such as JD Health and drive overall growth and efficiency gain across the entire JD ecosystem in the years to come.

In addition to food delivery, we are excited to work on a number of other initiatives. For example, in April, we launched a RMB 200 billion export-to-domestic sales program to work with export manufacturers to expand domestic market presence. It will also enrich product supplies on our platform, particularly those featuring great quality and low price. In addition, we've also been driving the application of AI and automation technologies across the demand, supply and fulfillment aspects of our entire ecosystem, such as better connecting user demand with our product offerings and delivery options, improving efficiency of our warehousing and fulfillment operations and developing AI-enabled tools to create better cost effectiveness for our 3P merchants. We are excited as AI is transforming the retail industry. As the largest retailer in China, we see abundant adoption scenarios.

In summary, Q1 was very productive and exciting. Our core retail business progressed favorably with robust growth on both top line and profits. And we are more excited as we are tapping into a set of great growth opportunities to expand our future TAM. Beyond a solid core business, we believe it is important for companies to hold a long-term perspective, remain steadfastly focused on its strategic priorities, while maintaining flexibility to adapt to industry dynamics. We believe JD today is on ever more solid footing, and we are making the necessary investments to support our sustainable long-term growth and bring value to society at large.

This concludes my remarks. Now let me pass it over to Ian.

[Ian Su Shan, executive]

Thank you, Sandy, and hello, everyone. We had a robust start of the year amid the steady rebound in China's macro economy and consumption. In Q1, our total revenues growth accelerated to 16% year-on-year. We recorded double-digit growth and acceleration across our major revenue streams, including electronics and home appliances, general merchandise and service revenues, particularly marketplace and marketing. This performance stands as a strong proof of our ever-enhancing supply chain capabilities and user experience.

In terms of profitability, our gross margin expanded by 60 bps year-on-year to 15.9% in Q1, sustaining a 12-quarter streak of year-on-year improvement. Non-GAAP net income attributable to ordinary shareholders was up 43% to RMB 13 billion, with non-GAAP net margin expanding by 82 bps to 4.2%. Alongside our strong financial results, we remain dedicated to delivering shareholder returns. In April, we completed annual cash dividend payouts of USD 1.44 billion or USD 1 per ADS. In terms of share buybacks, year-to-date in 2025, we repurchased a total of 80.7 million Class A ordinary shares, equivalent to 40.4 million ADS, which accounted for 2.8% of our ordinary shares outstanding as of December 31, 2024. The progress demonstrated our dedication to creating value for our shareholders and our strong conviction in JD's long-term growth and financial performance.

Now let's turn to our Q1 financial performance. Our net revenues grew by 16% year-on-year to RMB 301 billion in Q1. Breaking down the mix, product revenues grew by 16% year-on-year, of which electronics and home appliances revenues were up 17% and general merchandise revenues were up 15%, both at a faster pace compared to the prior quarter. For electronics and home appliances, we saw sustained strong consumption momentum in China, as the government continued to implement stimulus policies. JD is well positioned with our supply chain advantages to fulfill consumer demand, provide best-in-class trading experience and further enhance our market position and user mindshare.

Within general merchandise, both our supermarket and fashion categories recorded double-digit revenue growth in Q1 with further acceleration from a quarter ago. General merchandise remains an important engine for our long-term sustainable growth as it represents huge market potential, and we will persistently strive to improve our operations and user experience in this category.

Service revenues growth also accelerated to 14% year-on-year in Q1. Within services, marketplace and marketing revenues were up 16% and logistics and other service revenues were up 13%. For marketplace and marketing, its growth pace continued to accelerate sequentially in Q1, and both commission and advertising revenues maintained double-digit growth momentum. This was a result collectively driven by many improving trends on our platform, including the increasing user traffic and engagement, our improving traffic allocation efficiency, as well as our expanding 3P merchant base and product offerings.

Now let's turn to our segment performance. JD Retail achieved robust growth in both top line and profitability. Its revenues were up 16% year-on-year in Q1, driven by a solid performance across all major categories. In addition, in Q1, JD Retail's gross margin continued to improve for the 12th consecutive quarter as we continued to boost our procurement capabilities and accelerate growth of our high-margin revenue streams. In terms of operating income in Q1, JD Retail's non-GAAP operating income was up 38% year-on-year to RMB 13 billion, and operating margin was up [indiscernible] 4.9%. We are well on track to continue to drive healthy top line and profit trajectory for JD Retail as we move forward.

Next, JD Logistics. JD Logistics revenues grew by 11% year-on-year in Q1 with both internal and external revenues sustaining double-digit growth momentum. Its soft performance in terms of non-GAAP operating income in the quarter was in line with our expectations as it proactively invested to upgrade fulfillment capacity and user experience. In addition, JD Logistics has been working on increasing automation levels across its work streams, such as warehousing, sorting, transportation and last-mile delivery. This enables JD Logistics to improve its frontline employee productivity and safety as well as to further optimize its operational efficiency.

Moving to New Business. In Q1, revenues of New Business turned around to a positive growth of 18% year-on-year. At the same time, its non-GAAP operating loss widened to RMB 1.3 billion. Both were mainly driven by the fast growth of our Jingxi business in Q1, a key pillar for us to penetrate into low-tier markets with a broad assortment of value for money products to better serve user demands and expand our user base there. JD Food Delivery by segment is also recorded on the New Business. As it just started to scale at the end of Q1, the financial impact was not meaningful in the quarter. We are making very fast progress and gaining traction with consumers. merchants and riders with our differentiated business philosophy and model. In particular, we had good ROI for user acquisition. Quarter-to-date in Q2, we have seen more tangible results from JD Food Delivery's user traffic, retention as well as a great potential to synergize with our Retail business and the entire ecosystem.

Next, let's turn to our consolidated profit performance. In Q1, at the group level, our gross profit was up 20% year-on-year to RMB 48 billion. Gross margin was up 60 bps, up to 15.9%. It's primarily driven by JD Retail's gross margin improvement, highlighting the high-quality development of our core business. Non-GAAP net income attributable to ordinary shareholders at the group level increased by 43% year-on-year to RMB 13 billion in Q1, with non-GAAP net margin up 82 bps to 4.2%. Our last 12-month free cash flow as of the end of Q1 was RMB 38 billion compared to RMB 61 billion in the same period last year. This was primarily due to cash outflows associated with the trading program and our efforts to secure product supplies to meet robust consumer demand. And this partially offset by our profit expansion. By the end of Q1, our cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash and short-term investments totaled RMB 203 billion.

In summary, the strong performance in Q1 once again validates the effectiveness of our long-term strategic road map and our strong execution. Particularly, we're confident for JD Retail to steadily unleash its potential in both scale and operational efficiency improvement. At the same time, we are proactively making exciting headway into new business to build powerful synergies across the JD ecosystem and explore long-term opportunities. It takes tremendous efforts, but eventually will generate greater value for our customers, shareholders and the society at large.

With that, I will turn it back to Sean. Thank you.

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

Thank you, Sandy and Ian. For the Q&A session, you are welcome to ask questions in Chinese or English. And our management will answer your questions in the language you ask. We will provide English translation for convenience purpose only. In case of any discrepancy, please refer to our management statement in the original language. Operator, we can open the call for a Q&A session. Thank you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Your first question is from Ronald Keung from Goldman Sachs.

[Ronald Keung, analyst]

[Foreign Language] Two questions from me. One is on our food delivery. What do we see as the medium-term result for the food delivery initiative beyond maybe 3 to 6 months from the 2 quarters of pretty intense investments? And how do we see the food delivery industry landscape in the medium term? Second question is on JD Retail. With the acceleration that you've commented on across categories, also the margin expansion that we've seen, what have we done in driving particularly apparel and general merchandise strength? And what is our strategy in sustaining just overall healthy momentum beyond the training program into the second half?

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you, Ronald. Let me first take the question on on-demand retail and food delivery that people really focus on. So I shared my thoughts regarding on-demand retail and food delivery business in the opening remarks. Let me elaborate further here. First, from a strategic perspective, on-demand retail and food delivery business is a natural extension from JD's core retail business, so with the goal to provide users with a more diverse shopping experience and scenarios. Food delivery has the highest order volume mix and frequency within on-demand retail. Therefore, JD food delivery business is deeply rooted in JD overall business ecosystem. It is not a stand-alone business. We believe on-demand retail, including food delivery, will create great synergy with JD's existing business in terms of users, supply chain and fulfillment going forward.

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] So food delivery is a massive market with significant demand waiting to be fulfilled. So first, food delivery market in China is still growing rapidly with ample room for multiple platforms to thrive. Currently, there are demands from users, merchants and riders waiting to be fulfilled, including user demand for food safety and quality, merchants' demand for reasonable commissions and riders' demand for better protection. JD has the right strength, culture advantage to address such demands, including JD's better and cheaper brand awareness, the 35-cents principle that insists on taking only reasonable profit, and its strong logistic operation and management capabilities. So JD is both capable and willing to address this demand.

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] So let me elaborate a little bit further here. JD brand image of better and cheaper. JD has already built the mindshare of better and cheaper among our nearly 600 million annual active customers, which will help our food delivery business quickly build user trust and meet user demand for safe and quality meals. Of course, as you know, JD also established the industry's strictest merchant onboarding review standards and management system, which will further enhance user mindshare and trust for JD.

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] Regarding 35-cents principle, it is a principle that our founder insisted on and JD adheres to since day 1 of our operation, which is maintaining healthy yet only reasonable profit margin. By lowering commission rates and providing better traffic support to quality merchants, we can enable merchants to focus on food quality. This is a positive cycle. So for example, merchants joining JD Food Delivery platform before May 2025 will enjoy 0 commission for the year.

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] The largest operation and management capability for JD's existing on-demand retail delivery network and system as well as our rich experience in B2C e-commerce logistics operation management can be directly applied to food delivery. By providing full social insurance, including the 5 insurance and housing fund in China for the full-time delivery riders and offering accident insurance and health insurance for part-time riders, JD can improve rider retention and satisfaction, therefore, providing our users with better services.

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

Regarding specific business objectives, our current focus for food delivery is, one, on user and merchant experience; number two, on business scale; number three, on investment ROI. Food Delivery business can generate great synergies with JD existing business. Our mid- to long-term goal is to further strengthen the synergy effect and operational capability across JD ecosystem, providing sustainable growth driver in the long term.

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] So as of today, our system and operational capabilities still have a long way to go. We still have a lot of homework to do. Our focus right now is to improve operational efficiency on our system.

[Ian Su Shan, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Interpreted] Ronald, for your second question, in the first quarter, we achieved a broad-based growth. General merchandise category also maintained its momentum of double-digit revenue growth year-on-year with both supermarket and fashion categories hitting double-digit growth and further accelerating on a sequential basis. Over the past 2 years, our team has been relentlessly enhancing operational capabilities and user experience, which is generating results and helping to unlock the growth potential of the general merchandise category.

[Foreign Language].

[Interpreted] To take a closer look for fashion category, including apparel. Over the past year, we made a lot of efforts in building user mindshare, attracting more users to use JD as their choice for apparel needs. This year, we will further expand our brand selection and merchant base. We will also leverage our supply chain advantages to reinforce our differentiated user mindshare such as value for money and professionalism for core fashion categories. Additionally, we will provide users with more new releases and best-selling SKUs. This will also empower brands and merchants to achieve higher quality growth on our platform.

[Foreign Language].

[Interpreted] The supermarket category team has been continuously enhancing its operational capabilities over the past 2 years, achieving double-digit revenue growth for 5 consecutive quarters with the momentum continuing to pick up. The total addressable market of Chinese supermarket industry is massive. JD can leverage its efficient 1P business model and supply chain advantages, while further unlocking the synergies brought by food delivery and on-demand retail to meet users' diverse needs across different shopping scenarios.

[Foreign Language].

[Interpreted] While we see the growth momentum of general merchandise, we will continue to focus on user growth and user experience as well as ecosystem development to drive sustainable revenue growth this year and beyond. In terms of user growth and user experience, our quarterly active customers have maintained double-digit growth for 6 consecutive quarters with Q1 accelerating to over 20% year-on-year, an effective driver for our revenue growth. Going forward, we will further refine our user operation capabilities and provide high-quality shopping experience across core retail, on-demand retail and food delivery business, sustaining healthy growth in both user base and engagement throughout the year.

[Foreign Language].

[Interpreted] In terms of platform ecosystem, as 3P user experience continued to improve on our platform, we saw rapid growth in our 3P user base and order volume, which outpaced the overall growth of JD Retail. With a more established 3P ecosystem and stronger user mindshare towards our 3P offerings, we expect 3P to gradually unlock growth potential in the mid- to long-term.

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

Thank you. Let's go to the second question, please.

[Operator]

The next question is from Kenneth Fong from UBS.

[Kenneth Fong, analyst]

[Foreign Language] JD has achieved a remarkable result in the Food Delivery business with daily volume already close to 20 million a day. Can management share with us some of the key metrics like user retention, cross-selling opportunity with the Retail business, short-term, medium-term and long-term unit economic targets? After our investment in Food Delivery business, we have witnessed a very strong user growth in engagement level. So how should we think about the financial impact for this new investment and the strategy?

And my second question is related to AI. A different e-commerce platform has used AI to improve advertising ROI. As JD 3P ecosystem continues to improve, can management share with us how AI has helped enhance JD advertising system and algorithm. Other than advertising, how is AI being applied to our other business segments, too?

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you, Kenny, for your question. Yes, our team is paying close attention to this data right now. If we don't achieve 20 million today, it will happen very soon in the near future. This is an important milestone, and we feel very encouraged by this progress. In a very brief time of 3 months after launch of JD Food Delivery, we have seen groundbreaking progress and very positive results.

On the user side, Food Delivery daily order volume is growing very rapidly. We have gradually observed Food Delivery positive impact on traffic and user acquisition as well as boosting overall traffic conversion rate. Currently, repeat rate among Food Delivery users are very healthy. Since Food Delivery business is integrated in JD App, we are also seeing initial cross-selling trends emerging on JD's platform, primarily in supermarket and lifestyle service categories.

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] On the merchant side, we expanded from 0 to over 1 million onboarded stores in a short period of time, and merchants onboarding demand remains exceptionally strong, and we feel the pressure for sure with a lot of stores that are currently under the system connecting process. This also enabled us to rapidly expand our location-based product offering.

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] On the rider side, we see same momentum. So the responses from rider are very positive with many riders showing great enthusiasm. We even don't have sufficient uniforms for new signed up JD riders. So definitely seeing very strong interest from a large number of riders eager to join JD platform. All this demonstrated the immense potential of the industry. We are seeing very strong demand from all 3 parties. While this is also validating our precise understanding of user demand and our strong execution capability of our team, we have to say we are still in the stage of building our fundamental capabilities.

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] We also fully realize that JD Delivery is still in the very early stage with rapid development. We have to note that JD Food Delivery is only launched within a few dozen days. So some of the operational initiatives are still being implemented and system optimization is still ongoing. I think we're able to share more details, including UE and cross-category synergies at a later stage. Our current focus is to work on enhancing user experience, upgrading operational capabilities, building a healthier ecosystem for merchants and providing secure employment for riders. Our investment will be to centered around better meeting the needs of the 3 parties, namely users, merchants and riders.

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] So therefore, we made a strategic decision to enter the Food Delivery business with a focus on building a sustainable long-term business rather than achieving short-term financial targets for any particular quarter of a year. We are confident that as the business grows, it will gradually realize economic scale and operational efficiency improvements. More importantly, being deeply rooted within JD overall ecosystem, the Food Delivery business holds significant synergetic potential with our on-demand retail and our core retail operations going forward, including driving incremental growth in user traffic, purchase frequency and cross-selling, while enhancing efficiency and reducing costs through optimized delivery network utilization and data-driven technology enhancement.

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] Let me share my thoughts on your second question on AI adoption and advertising. We are actively embracing the tremendous opportunity presented by AI and automation. We firmly believe these technologies will profoundly transfer the retail industry, not only by enhancing operational efficiency and reducing costs, but also by significantly improving user experience and innovating business models. Currently, we are testing and applying AI technologies across numerous retail scenarios and the entire supply chain network.

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] On the demand side, we are leveraging AI to better identify and stimulate user demand, enhancing the precise matching between demand and supply. For example, we are using AI to reform the search recommendation system. In the meantime, we are actively exploring innovative AI applications, including more efficient AI-powered shopping assistant.

On the supply side, we are consistently upgrading a series of AI-powered tools for merchants to reduce cost and improve efficiency. Concurrently, we are enhancing the productivity of JD 1P procurement and sales operations through AI, optimizing efficiency during sourcing, product selection and pricing. Leveraging JD's unique supply chain advantage and experience, we are developing AI agents to significantly boost productivity for our sales and procurement personnel.

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] Of course, on the fulfillment side, not only AI, but also automation holds a lot of potential for efficiency gain. We are implementing robotics automation technology across standardized warehouse process to enhance operational efficiencies at every stage, reduce employment workload and drive productivity and reduce operational costs through our warehouse operations.

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] In terms of AI application for advertising business, our advertising R&D team is leveraging AI large language model to enhance ad algorithm and recommendation effectiveness, driving higher ad conversion rate and accelerating the ad revenue growth. We are actively developing and implementing AI-powered advertising agents that can execute complex ad campaigns through simple command from merchants. With particular focus on serving the over 1 million merchants who have joined JD platform in the past 2 years, we believe AI agents can help merchants enhance ad efficiency and campaign effectiveness, while significantly reducing operational costs and complexity for business. Currently, our advertising revenue has continuously achieved double-digit growth with accelerating momentum. We firmly believe there is significant potential for monetization, particularly through AI large language model-driven efficiency gains that will fuel sustainable long-term growth.

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] Of course, I forgot to mention, there's a great potential for AI adoption in advertising content generation. So in summary, we believe JD's differentiated capability and extensive scenario across the entire supply chain provides the most fertile ground for widespread AI adoption in retail and supply chain operations, presenting us with unique opportunity to deeply integrate AI into every retail scenarios, ultimately enhancing operational efficiency, enhancing user experience and unlocking long-term revenue and profit growth potential. Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question is from Alicia Yap from Citigroup.

[Alicis a Yap, analyst]

[Foreign Language].

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you, Alicia. I will answer your question regarding 618. So first of all, this year's JD 618 campaign is centered around better and cheaper, aiming to enhance consumer mindshare by offering a wider range of products and use case as well as a bunch of straightforward discounts. So in terms of schedule, following our tradition, this year's JD 618 campaign start at 8:00 p.m. on May 31. Before this, we'll launch a so-called Heartbeat Shopping Festival to meet consumer demand, bringing constant shopping surprises to users. The Heartbeat Shopping Festival has officially started 8:00 p.m. tonight, China Time, and we welcome all investor analysts to jump in and experience it firsthand and help support consumption in China.

In terms of marketing campaigns, this year, there are more shopping scenarios and promotional activities. This year also marks the debut of the national trading subsidy and JD Food Delivery debut on JD 618 campaign, offering users an ultimate value for money experience with extra subsidies. In terms of merchant support, this year, JD 618 will provide multiple subsidies and traffic incentives for brands and merchants, focusing on content ecosystem and advertising to help merchants achieve explosive sales of sustainable operations, resulting in more predictable growth.

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language]

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] Since the beginning of this year, driven by a series of policies to boost consumption, the overall consumption trend has continued to improve, which will also promote the ongoing economic growth. Leveraging the ultimate user experience, JD has achieved healthy growth in both user base and scale. With the consumer market picking up and all preparation that we have done for the JD 618 campaign, we are more confident about the user growth and sales this year during JD 618 campaign and bringing consumers with better and cheaper shopping experiences.

[Ian Su Shan, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Interpreted] Alicia, regarding your question about JD's long-term growth and net margin targets. First, JD's business model is built on supply chain capabilities and centered around user experience. Our long-term investment will focus on enhancing user experience, driving user growth and strengthening our advantages in 1P business model and logistics services.

[Foreign Language].

[Interpreted] But basically, first, in terms of user experience and user growth, we have been continuously enriching the supply of quality products on our platform and our ability to serve users, meeting their diverse demands. For example, our efforts in Jingxi business, on-demand retail and food delivery have helped to accelerate user growth. The high-frequency, high-volume orders have also supplemented user data for the entire JD ecosystem, generating cross-selling opportunities and synergies with our core business.

[Foreign Language].

[Interpreted] In terms of our 1P capabilities, we have been improving our operations in categories such as electronics and home appliances and general merchandise, including supermarkets and fashion categories. For example, we have been strengthening the operational capabilities, including category planning capabilities of our procurement and sales team. We aim to create a differentiated product supplier advantage through capabilities like customization and exclusive sales. At the same time, we are constantly strengthening our industry-leading supply chain system, leveraging the scale benefits to drive down procurement costs and improve efficiency.

[Foreign Language].

[Interpreted] In terms of our logistics capabilities, we will make efforts to further upgrade our last-mile fulfillment network and capabilities. In addition, we will be leveraging automation and AI technologies to progressively implement intelligent solutions across all logistics operations with the aim to drive sustainable long-term cost reduction and efficiency gains.

[Foreign Language].

[Interpreted] We are confident that these efforts will further strengthen JD's supply chain advantages and continue to enhance user experience and mindshare on our enriched products, price competitiveness and service quality. This will drive better user growth and engagement and position us for accelerated growth going forward. In the long run, our profit margins will continue to improve with the expansion of our business scale and increased operational efficiency. JD's long-term goal of achieving high single-digit net margin remains unchanged.

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

Next question, please.

[Operator]

The next question come from Thomas Chong with Jefferies.

[Thomas Chong, analyst]

[Foreign Language] My first question is about the trade-in program and subsidies to electronic categories. How should we think about the trend for smartphones and home appliances over the next few quarters? And my second question is about capital return. Can management comment about the latest update on shareholders return like buy back?

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language]

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you, Thomas. Since last year, a series of stimulus policies introduced by the government have already shown positive results. The trade-in program not only boosted consumer demand and driven sales of home appliance and mobile phones, but also promoted the industry's shift towards offering more high-end and intelligent product selections. We are seeing significant potential in Chinese consumer market.

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language]

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] We also expect to see very strong momentum of the electronic category, including mobile phone and home appliance categories in the second quarter.

[Xu Ran, executive]

[Foreign Language]

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

[Interpreted] We'll continue to enhance our supply chain and service capabilities to provide users with better shopping experience, converting potential demand into sales and increasing our market share in the electronics categories.

[Ian Su Shan, executive]

[Foreign Language].

[Interpreted] Now let me update the latest progress of our shareholder return. Year-to-date, in 2025, we have repurchased a total of around 80.7 million ordinary shares, equivalent to 40.4 million ADS for a total of about USD 1.5 billion. This represented about 2.8% of our ordinary shares outstanding as of December 31, 2024. Our average share buyback price was USD 37.18 per ADS. In addition, in March, we announced annual cash dividend for the year of 2024 and completed the dividend payment in this totaling USD 1.44 billion or USD 1 per ADS.

[Foreign Language].

[Interpreted] Going forward, we remain committed to give back to our shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. At the same time, we will keep focused on achieving long-term healthy growth in business scale, profitability and cash flow. We aim to share our success with shareholders through various ways.

[Operator]

Okay. Thank you. We are now approaching the end of the conference call. I will now turn the call over to JD.com's Sean Zhang for closing remarks.

[Sean Shibiao Zhang, executive]

Thank you all for joining us on the call today, and thanks for your questions. If you have further questions, please contact me and our team. We appreciate your interest in JD.com and look forward to talking with you next quarter. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect. Good day.