[caption id="attachment_79078" align="aligncenter" width="666"] Source: Company reports/Coresight Research[/caption] 4Q18 Results JD.com reported revenue of ¥134.8 billion ($19.6 billion) for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2018, up 22.4% year over year, versus 38.7% growth in 3Q18. The Singles’ Day promotional period starting from early November to November 11 contributed a large portion of company sales, which beat the consensus estimate of ¥132.5 billion as recorded by Bloomberg. The company’s full year 2018 revenue was ¥462.0 billion ($67.2 billion), up 27.5% year over year. Operating loss for the quarter decreased to ¥938.9 million ($136.6 million) from ¥1.59 billion for the same period last year, equating to an operating margin of (0.7%). The operating margin of the company’s core business JD Mall was 1.1%, compared to 0.6% for the same period last year. Non-GAAP diluted EPS increased 64.5% to ¥0.51 year over year, beating the consensus estimate of a ¥0.20 loss.

• Annual active customers increased 4.4% to 305.3 million for the full year 2018 from 292.5 million in the prior year.
• Total merchants on its marketplace were over 210,000 for the full year 2018 from over 170,000 in the prior year.

Business Highlights In the quarter, the company continued to push its “boundaryless retail” and “retail as a service” initiatives, and achieved progress in its luxury, fresh food, supermarkets, delivery and logistics businesses:

• US luxury fashion brand DKNY and Korean luxury beauty brand Sulwhasoo launched flagship stores on JD.com.
• Fresh food unit JD Fresh partnered with Japanese chemical manufacturing company Mitsubishi Chemical to open the largest hydroponic plant facility in China to supply quality produce to JD.com’s online channels and offline supermarkets 7FRESH.
• By the end of the fourth quarter, JD.com’s joint venture Dada-JD Daojia had  established partnerships with over 100,000 stores, including leading retailers such as Walmart, Yonghui, Carrefour and CR Vanguard to provide delivery services through its crowd-sourcing delivery network.
• JD.com operated over 550 warehouses with a total gross floor area of around 12 million square meters in China as of December 31, 2018.
• JD.com’s property management group JDPM established JD Logistics Properties Core Fund together with Singapore’s Government Investment Corporation. JD.com may sell some logistics facilities to the fund to finance investment in other areas.

Outlook The company expects total revenue of ¥118–122 billion for the first quarter of 2019, representing a year-over-year growth rate of 18–22%.