Chinese e-commerce and logistics conglomerate JD.com released its audited financial statements for the third quarter of 2018 Monday evening, reporting a revenue growth slightly below the expectation of Wall Street analysts, the Securities Times reported.
The NASDAQ-listed e-commerce giant generated a total of 104.8 billion yuan (15.3 billion U.S. dollars) in operating revenue during the third quarter, a strong year-on-year increase of 25.1 percent which still falls short of the average expectation of 22 analysts from the Wall Street.
Boosted by the strong revenue growth, the company’s net profit grew by as much as 200 percent year over year to 3 billion yuan (400 million U.S. dollars) under the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) during the reporting period. However, according to the non-GAAP, its net profit was down by up to 45.5 percent from the previous year to just 1.2 billion yuan (173 million U.S. dollars).
During a one-year period ending on Sept. 30, the company’s e-commerce platform achieved an annual active user base of 305.2 million, which was up by 38.9 million from the same period last year while dropping by over 8 million compared with the one-year period ending a quarter earlier.
The platform posted a profit margin of 2.2 percent during the third quarter, which was close to its historic high and jumped by 1.1 percentage points from the previous quarter. Its gross merchandise volume (GMV) also rose by 30.5 percent to 394.8 billion yuan (56.9 billion U.S. dollars) over the same period.
The company forecasts an 18 percent to 23 percent year-on-year growth in its operating revenue during the final quarter of this year, which is expected to hit somewhere between 130 billion yuan (18.74 billion U.S. dollars) and 135 billion yuan (19.46 billion U.S. dollars).
As for JD.com’s financial outlook for 2019, Richard Liu, founder and CEO of the company, said that the company’s R&D investment was unlikely to rise dramatically next year. He also underscored that with the company’s massive investment coming to an end, it would see an improved profitability and cash flow in 2019.
The company’s R&D investment surged by as much as 88 percent year on year during the first three quarters of 2018 as Richard Liu seeks to turn JD.com into a tech company over the next ten years.
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