JD.com's net profit declined significantly last year, CEO Xu Ran: expects total investment in takeout to decrease somewhat this year

JD Reports Full-Year Results After “Food Delivery War”

On March 5th, JD.com released its Q4 and full-year 2025 financial results. The earnings report shows that the company achieved a net revenue of 352.3 billion yuan in Q4, up 1.5% year-over-year, slightly above market expectations; a net loss attributable to shareholders of 2.7 billion yuan in Q4, compared to a profit of 9.9 billion yuan in the same period last year; and a non-GAAP net profit of 1.1 billion yuan, down 90.3% year-over-year.

The external concern mainly focuses on the impact of the food delivery war on JD.com—specifically on profits. The report indicates that JD’s full-year net profit attributable to shareholders was 19.6 billion yuan, a 52.7% decline from 41.4 billion yuan in 2024; non-GAAP net profit was 27 billion yuan, down 43.5% year-over-year. Last year, JD’s revenue reached 1.3091 trillion yuan, a 13% increase.

During the earnings call, JD CEO Xu Ran addressed external concerns about the food delivery business. She stated that JD Food Delivery aims to develop at a healthy scale while continuously improving operational efficiency, with total investments expected to decrease compared to 2025 by 2026.

Regarding differentiation advantages, Xu Ran mentioned that JD will adhere to a quality-focused food delivery positioning, ensuring service quality through full-time riders, and leveraging ecological synergies to highlight supply chain strengths. Additionally, the platform will diversify income sources, improve subsidies and delivery efficiency, and drive healthy growth through order volume.

From a long-term strategic perspective, food delivery and instant retail are key directions for JD, with a focus on sustainable development. JD will continue optimizing operational efficiency and profitability while deepening collaboration with core retail. In 2025, food delivery attracted new users and increased user purchase frequency, and in 2026, it will also generate incremental value in areas such as merchant sales and advertising revenue.

Regarding industry regulation, Xu Ran clearly expressed support and welcomed regulatory measures, which help maintain fair market competition and industry health. JD will also resolutely resist vicious competition driven by internal overcompetition, and promote high-quality development of quality food delivery through supply chain innovation.

The financial report shows that JD’s core business remained stable last year, but the significant losses from new businesses—including food delivery—affected overall performance. The new business revenue grew 157.3% year-over-year to 49.3 billion yuan, but operating losses expanded to 46.6 billion yuan, with an operating loss rate of 94.6%. In Q4 alone, operating losses reached 14.8 billion yuan, a sharp increase from a 900 million yuan loss in the same period in 2024.

Notably, it was previously disclosed that JD Food Delivery processed over 240 million orders last year, capturing more than 15% of the food delivery market. JD aims to reach a 30% market share by 2026.

A key project for JD Food Delivery—Qixian Xiaochu—has shown promising results. According to JD, each Qixian Xiaochu opening after three months averages over 500 orders per day, also boosting traffic and growth in surrounding restaurants. JD plans to accelerate the expansion of Qixian Xiaochu by 2026, covering all first- and second-tier cities nationwide.

Looking ahead to profit development, Xu Ran stated that retail profits will achieve healthy growth in 2026, maintaining a long-term high single-digit profit margin target. Drivers of profit growth include improved operational capabilities raising gross margins, strong growth in high-margin revenue streams like advertising, and continuous improvement in profit margins across categories such as supermarkets.

“Regarding new business investments, food delivery’s losses narrowed by nearly 20% quarter-over-quarter in the recently completed Q4. While maintaining healthy growth in scale, operational efficiency and revenue improvements have significantly reduced overall losses. We will continue to promote healthy growth of the food delivery scale and unlock its synergistic value with core retail,” Xu Ran said.

International business will gradually increase investments according to plan, with overall scale remaining manageable. JD’s JX business continues to deepen in lower-tier markets, focusing on white-label supply, with significant penetration improvements in cities below the middle tier. Investment in this area will slightly increase this year, with operational efficiency also improving, supporting sustainable business growth.

Xu Ran also highlighted the impact of AI and new technologies on JD. She believes that the opportunities brought by AI and other innovations far outweigh the challenges. Currently, Agentic Commerce (intelligent agent-based commerce) is still in early development, mainly affecting front-end traffic channels. JD is increasing technology investments: on one hand, advancing large model applications; on the other, collaborating with leading large model providers for testing; and on the third, building an end-to-end AI commerce enterprise from supply chain to consumer.

Xu Ran believes that, leveraging self-operated business and full-link logistics fulfillment, JD has far more extensive AI, robotics, and flexible automation application scenarios than platform-based e-commerce. There is vast potential for AI-driven efficiency improvements across all business stages.

She revealed that, in practical applications, AI has already improved efficiency in multiple scenarios: on the demand side, AI-driven search and recommendations reshape the shopping experience; on the supply side, AI assists in product selection, pricing, and inventory management, significantly reducing manual work; in fulfillment, warehouse automation and other physical applications are steadily scaling; and on the service side, AI-powered customer service and after-sales support are widely implemented.

Xu Ran stated that JD has launched multiple AI innovative products through continuous operations. During the Double 11 shopping festival, products such as AI toys, robots, and smart hardware integrated with large models saw sales increase over 20 times compared to the 618 shopping event. She emphasized that AI will reshape JD’s core competitive advantages, and the company is fully prepared to seize AI strategic opportunities and establish a leading position in AI-driven e-commerce.

JD CFO Dan Su said that despite some short-term fluctuations in Q4, the financial health remains robust, and the full-year 2025 targets were achieved. In 2025, JD’s shareholder returns remained strong, with a total return rate of about 10%, including a 6.3% share repurchase of circulating common stock totaling approximately $3 billion, and annual cash dividends of about $1.4 billion. Looking ahead, JD will continue creating value for shareholders through steady business growth and shareholder return commitments.