Aug 13 (Reuters) – JD.com, a major sales platform for consumer electronics products in China, expects home-appliance sales to improve in the second half, it said on Thursday, after reporting its first quarterly revenue decline in more than a decade.
CEO Sandy Xu said on a call with analysts that revenues from electronics and home appliances suffered in the quarter from a high comparison base a year earlier and increased raw materials costs, but momentum picked up in June.
“Looking into the second half, while the ongoing rising consumer electronic price may continue to weigh on consumer demand, we remain confident that this category will grow,” Xu said.
She added growth will improve “meaningfully”, in part because of the difficult year-on-year comparison starting to ease.
U.S.-listed shares of the company were down 3.5% at 1342 GMT.
REVIVING CONSUMER SPENDING STILL A CHALLENGE IN CHINA
The e-commerce giant beat quarterly revenue estimates on Thursday, helped by a longer sales period for the annual 618 shopping festival, one of China’s largest online retail events, though total revenues were still down 2.9% at 346.4 billion yuan ($51.37 billion) in the quarter ended June.
Analysts on average had estimated revenues at 344.6 billion yuan, according to data compiled by LSEG.
The decline highlights the challenge of reviving consumer spending amid concerns about job security and weak consumer confidence stemming from China’s years-long property sector downturn.
This year’s 618 event, marking JD.com’s founding on June 18, 1998, ran for more days than the previous year, giving retailers and brands extra time to compete for spending through deep discounts and promotional campaigns.
Net profit in the quarter was 7.1 billion yuan, compared to 6.2 billion in the same period last year.
Quarterly non-GAAP net profit was 8.9 billion yuan, up 20% from the second quarter in 2025.
($1 = 6.7431 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Sophie Yu in Beijing; Editing by Keith Weir and Jan Harvey)
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