Investors were certainly buying what sprawling Chinese e-commerce company JD.com (JD 3.36%) was advertising on Tuesday. On offer was the company’s latest set of quarterly results, which beat estimates and helped push its U.S.-listed American depositary shares (ADSs) more than 3% higher in price. That compared quite favorably to the 0.7% upward crawl of the bellwether S&P 500 index.
Double-digit improvements in the first quarter
For its opening quarter of 2025, JD.com booked revenue of slightly over 301 billion yuan ($47 billion), which represented a nearly 16% improvement on a year-over-year basis.
The online retailer managed to post a far higher leap in profitability, with non-GAAP (adjusted) net income zooming 43% higher to 12.8 billion yuan ($1.8 billion). On a per-share basis, this figure was 8.41 yuan ($1.16) per ADS.
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Both key fundamentals easily topped the consensus analyst estimates. On average, the pundits tracking JD.com stock were anticipating the company would earn slightly under 291 million yuan ($40 million) in revenue, filtering down into an adjusted net-income figure of 7.09 yuan ($.98) per ADS.
Sustained recovery?
In the earnings release, JD.com attributed its growth to both external and internal factors. It quoted CEO Sandy Xu as saying that “Our performance was supported by improving consumer sentiment and continued enhancements to JD’s supply chain capabilities and user experience.”
Xu also said the company benefited from growth in its overall user count too.
Although Chinese economic growth isn’t what it once was, JD.com’s performance indicates the consumer sector might be staging something of a comeback. If that continues, not only this company but numerous other retailers could very well be in a position to benefit. This might be quite the sector for investors to watch.
