JD.com Q1 Revenue Saw Slight Year-On-Year Growth, Meal Delivery Losses Narrowed Sharply Quarter-on-Quarter

JD.com Inc. announced its unaudited financial results for the first quarter of 2026 on Tuesday, with core metrics generally exceeding market estimates. The company's net revenue for the first quarter was 315.69 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.9%, higher than the market's estimated 311.43 billion yuan; adjusted earnings per ADS was 5.12 yuan, higher than the estimated 3.57 yuan.

The pressure on the profit side remains significant but is less than the market's worries. The adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was 8.02 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 41%, but significantly higher than the market's estimate of 4.46 billion yuan. After the release of the financial report, JD's U.S. stock price rose by more than 3% before the market opened.

Food Delivery Losses Narrow Sequentially, but Remain the Biggest Drag

The new business was the biggest drag on profits this quarter, especially food delivery. Since JD entered the Chinese food delivery market at the beginning of 2025, it has competed directly with Meituan and Ele.me by subsidizing to win users, and the price war once dragged down the company's profits, leading to the company's first loss in nearly four years in the fourth quarter of 2025.

In the first quarter, revenue from new businesses increased by 9.1% year-on-year to 6.3 billion yuan, but operating losses increased from 1.3 billion yuan last year to 10.3 billion yuan, with an operating loss rate of 164.9%. This was mainly driven by the initial investment in JD's food delivery business, indicating that the business is still in a high investment phase in the short term.

However, marginal changes have occurred. The company stated that JD's food delivery "per order profit and loss continue to improve," the total investment scale has "narrowed significantly" quarter-on-quarter, and continues to release synergies with the core retail business in terms of user growth, purchase frequency, and cross-category purchases. From a year-on-year perspective, losses from new businesses are still expanding; from a quarter-on-quarter perspective, the pressure of losses has receded from the extreme state in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Retail Profit Margin Increases, Core Business Continues to Support

JD Retail remains the core of the company's profits. In the first quarter, JD Retail's revenue was 268.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.8%; operating profit was 15 billion yuan, higher than last year's 12.8 billion yuan.

The operating profit margin of JD Retail increased from 4.9% last year to 5.6%, indicating that against the background of a year-on-year decline in overall profits, the operational efficiency of the core retail business is still improving.

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