Richard Liu Qiangdong, JD.com’s CEO, recently gave a talk on the future of ecommerce at a conference in Beijing. Richard Liu predicts that there will be huge growth in the ecommerce industry in the next few years, as more and more consumers shift their spending to online channels.
Richard Liu believes mobile commerce will continue to grow at an alarming rate, as consumers become increasingly comfortable making purchases through their smartphones and tablets. Richard Liu has led JD since its founding in 1998. The company began as a B2C business, allowing consumers to purchase direct from manufacturers. Over time, the company evolved into providing a full suite of supply chain services for retailers, who use JD’s massive logistics network to manage their inventory and entire warehouse operations. JD is China’s leading ecommerce company, with a market cap of over $30 billion and revenue in 2014 of approximately $12 billion.
In the first half of 2015, JD’s revenue grew at a rate of 48%, as compared to 57% growth for the same period last year. In his talk, Richard Liu stated that this slowdown is to be expected as the company enters new, more difficult markets. The majority of JD’s growth has come from its home market in China, where the business-to-consumer sector is extremely mature. To continue growing, the company must expand into rural areas and smaller cities throughout Asia, which will be a significant challenge over the coming years.
business in these smaller Chinese cities, as brick and mortar stores are not well suited to serve customers who Qiangdong believes ecommerce is the only viable method of doing live in high-rise homes without elevators. According to JD’s CTO Liang Jing, the average height of a residential building in China is five stories.
JD has made several acquisitions to support its expansion into new markets, including investments in Tmall (the Alibaba Group’s B2C platform) and Yixun (China’s largest consumer-to-consumer marketplace). These companies give JD access to millions of potential customers without the need for expensive brick and mortar stores. Refer to this article for more information.
More about Liu Qiangdong on https://www.crunchbase.com/person/qiangdong-liu