JD.com’s food delivery foray unnerves investors as shares lag

INVESTORS in shares of JD.com face a gut check in next week’s earnings report from the online retailer as it girds for battle in the food-delivery space currently dominated by Meituan.

JD.com officially launched its JD Takeaway platform earlier this month, while a number of its Chinese tech peers were garnering attention with artificial intelligence (AI) related news. Opening competition on a new front has raised concerns over the impact on its profitability, already dented by an ongoing e-commerce price war with Alibaba Group Holding and PDD Holdings.

“The food delivery business is very tough – taking on Meituan,” said Jonathan Pines, lead portfolio manager of Asia ex-Japan equity at Federated Hermes. “They are worried about their core business, perhaps, and they are looking for growth. So it was a negative development, and I think the market took it negatively.”

JD.com’s Hong Kong-listed shares are up about 6 per cent this month, trailing Meituan’s 17 per cent rise and Alibaba’s AI-fuelled advance of over 50 per cent. The options market is pricing in an 8 per cent move in either direction for JD.com’s stock after its results, compared with an average gain or drop of 5 per cent following its past eight quarterly reports.

How much money JD.com is investing in the new business remains a question mark, and will likely be a key focus when it reports earnings next on Thursday (Feb 27). Expansion could pay off, with China’s online food-delivery market projected to grow to US$197.9 billion by 2033 from US$81.9 billion last year, according to ResearchAndMarkets.com.

The investment could “drag on margins if they decide to be aggressive”, said Xin-Yao Ng, an investment director at abrdn in Singapore. “Meituan has built a very strong moat, so it’s fine if it’s a limited attempt, but will be bad if they talk about going all out.”

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JD.com’s overall growth has started to reaccelerate with help from government subsidies for household appliance purchases, though it’s still far below peak levels in years past. Its profitability has suffered from competition, with one of the tightest operating margins among large-cap Chinese Internet firms at about 3 per cent.

It faces a daunting task in taking on Meituan – the far-and-away leader in Chinese food delivery with a two-thirds market share – and others including Alibaba’s Ele.me. TikTok parent ByteDance scaled back its food delivery ambitions with Douyin after attempting to go head-to-head with Meituan in 2023.

JD Takeaway was built with help from Dada Nexus, which fulfils delivery orders for restaurant chains such as McDonald’s in addition to general retailers in China. JD.com owns more than half of Dada Nexus and has proposed a deal to take the US-listed company private.

Now available in over three dozen cities in China, JD Takeaway is offering zero commission for some restaurants as it seeks to lure business. Meituan and JD.com both also announced plans to offer delivery staff social security benefits, further raising potential costs.

“It’s essentially a form of price war that could be bad for the sector’s profit outlook – with the social security benefits adding costs, and more competition limiting potential take-rate growth,” said Daisy Li, fund manager at EFG Asset Management HK. BLOOMBERG