By Jiahui Huang

Chinese online retailer JD.com reported better-than-expected results in the fourth quarter despite fierce e-commerce competition in the world's second-largest economy, thanks to strong consumer spending.

Net profit nearly tripled to 9.85 billion yuan, equivalent to $1.36 billion, as revenue increased 13% from a year earlier to 346.99 billion yuan, the Beijing-based company said Thursday. That compared with analysts' expectations for net profit of 7.6 billion yuan on revenue of 333.0 billion yuan, according to FactSet.

Chief Executive Sandy Xu said "rebounding consumption" led to the strong quarter, adding that revenue growth returned to double digits and the bottom line achieved healthy expansion.

Analysts at Citi viewed the revenue growth as impressive, saying in a note that the company delivered a strong set of results, "comfortably beating already revised up estimates."

JD.com's American depositary receipts rose nearly 6% in premarket trading.

The results are the latest sign that Beijing's efforts to promote consumption are bearing fruit. At the National People's Congress meeting on Wednesday, Chinese policymakers said that boosting consumption will be their top policy priority this year. The government also doubled its budget for the consumer trade-in program to 300 billion yuan.

All that should bode well for JD.com's prospects in 2025, but it also comes amid a more fragmented Chinese e-commerce landscape, with the company no longer in a two-horse race with Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall platforms. Newcomers such as discount retailer PDD's Pinduoduo and ByteDance's short-video app Douyin are rising in popularity, gaining ground by adapting to consumer trends and offering new and interactive ways of making purchases.

In the final quarter of 2024, JD.com's retail sales, which make up the bulk of its revenue, rose 15%, while logistics sales increased 10%.

Stronger momentum across various sectors boosted the company's earnings, reflecting recovering consumption in a slowing Chinese economy.

Adjusted net profit, which excludes share-based compensation and fair-value changes of long-term investments, among other items, climbed 34% to 11.29 billion yuan for the quarter.

For the full year, the company said net profit jumped 71% to 41.36 billion yuan and revenue rose 6.8% to 1.159 trillion yuan.

"We head into 2025 with more optimism, as consumption sentiment steadily picks up, and we continue to unlock high-quality growth potentials with our strong execution of strategic priorities," Xu said.

Rival Alibaba also delivered better-than-expected results last month, with revenue for the latest quarter growing at the fastest pace since late 2023, helped by its e-commerce and cloud businesses.

Write to Jiahui Huang at jiahui.huang@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 06, 2025 06:17 ET (11:17 GMT)

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