China’s JD.com looks to warehousing assets to help revive profits – Reuters
What happened: China’s second largest e-commerce company JD.com reported a net loss of $334.4 million in the second quarter of 2018. The loss was nearly double forecasts for a $177 million polled by Thomson Reuters. The loss was mainly to do increased investment in technology and slower sales. In the future, JD.com expects its warehousing assets to help increase profits.
Why it’s important: JD.com owns about 2.5 million square meters of warehouse space and said it will help the company profit. JD has acquired some of the warehouse facilities on beneficial terms with Chinese local government to boost local job opportunities. Although JD had its annual shopping festival in June, the sales dropped unexpectedly near the end of the festival and JD blamed unfair competition by Alibaba for it.