JD.com posts 73% gain in revenue during Q4

An advertisement for e-commerce retailer JD.com Inc in Shanghai. Yan Daming / For China Daily

JD.com Inc, the biggest e-commerce rival to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd in China, posted a 73 percent rise in revenue for the three months through December, topping estimates as it expanded sales across more consumer goods categories.

Revenue for JD.com's fourth quarter rose to $5.6 billion versus the $5.3 billion average estimate of 13 analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

The Beijing-based company said on Tuesday it expected revenue of between 34.8 billion yuan ($5.55 billion) and 35.8 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2015.

The company moved more goods than ever during the fourth quarter, which included the annual Chinese shopping extravaganza known as Nov 11 Singles' Day, with gross merchandise value reaching 85.8 billion yuan, an increase of 119 percent.

Excluding certain items such as stock-based compensation expenses, JD.com recorded a profit of 83.8 million yuan, with a margin of 0.2 percent, in line with what executives had forecast.

JD.com runs second place to Alibaba in China, with little love lost between the two companies' founders.

Its business, like Amazon.com Inc's, is built on selling products it purchases through its own logistics network; Alibaba by contrast has grown its business quickly by connecting sellers to buyers rather than stocking its own merchandise.

JD.com, which has sought to differentiate itself by touting the authenticity of its products, said it is pushing into categories beyond its traditional stronghold of consumer electronics.

The e-tailer recently inked an exclusive online deal with Kweichow Moutai Co Ltd, for instance, to distribute the luxury sorghum spirit across China, a liquor market wracked with counterfeits.

Seeking a leg up over its much larger competitor, JD.com paired up with Alibaba rival Tencent Holdings Ltd, maker of the popular WeChat messaging app, to expand its sales on mobile devices.

JD.com said the value of goods sold over WeChat and Mobile QQ, another Tencent chat app, doubled from the July to September quarter, although it declined to specify the exact value.

Sales fulfilled via mobile devices accounted for more than one-third of total orders in the quarter, the company said.

JD.com shares were up 2 percent before the New York market opened on Tuesday and are up 17 percent year-to-date.

JD announced in December that Gap Inc, the largest United States retail chain focused on apparel, opened a store on its sales platform.

The move is part of a shift away from retailing and toward a marketplace model similar to that of sector leader Alibaba.

To boost its mobile presence, JD.com partnered with Tencent. The deal helped JD.com increase mobile orders more than sixfold in the third quarter from a year earlier, billionaire founder and Chairman Richard Liu said in an interview in November.