ZhiKe | Three Accounts of JD's Food Delivery Service

Author | Fan Liang

Editor | Ding Mao

On the evening of August 14th, JD.com Group released its financial report for the second quarter of 2025.

According to the financial report data, JD.com Group achieved an operating income of 356.66 billion yuan in the second quarter, a year-on-year increase of 22.4%; the net profit attributable to the parent company was 6.178 billion yuan, a year-on-year decline of about 51%.

Undoubtedly, the year-on-year decline in profit was mainly affected by the subsidies for the food delivery business, and the capital market had already had certain expectations for this. If the impact of the food delivery business is not considered, JD Retail still achieved growth far exceeding expectations this quarter. The operating income increased by 20.6% year-on-year, and the operating profit increased by 37.9% year-on-year. The solid core business is also the confidence for JD.com to develop the food delivery business.

So, how exactly does the food delivery business affect JD.com's performance, and what is the performance of its core fundamentals?

Investing tens of billions in food delivery, impacting profit performance

As the competition in the food delivery market intensifies, the specific impact of the food delivery business on JD.com's operations in the second-quarter financial report is the focus of the market's attention.

According to the financial report disclosure, JD.com classified the food delivery business into the new business segment. Previously, the new business segment mainly included JD Industrial Development, Jingxi, and overseas businesses. This quarter, JD Food Delivery was added.

Therefore, from the financial data such as operating income, operating cost, operating expenses, and operating profit of the new business segment, we can grasp the financial changes of JD Food Delivery.

The following figure shows the quarterly changes in the operating income and operating profit of JD.com's new business from 2024 to the present. It can be seen that the revenue of the new business has increased slightly since the first quarter of 2025, and the operating loss has also slightly widened during the same period. Since the second quarter of 2025, with the increase in subsidies, the revenue and operating loss of JD.com's new business have both shown a sharp increase year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter.

Year-on-year, the revenue of JD.com's new business in Q2 2025 increased by nearly 200% from 4.636 billion yuan to 13.852 billion yuan, and the operating loss widened from 695 million yuan to 14.777 billion yuan. Quarter-on-quarter, the revenue of JD.com's new business in Q2 2025 increased by about 141%.

Considering that the operating income of the new business in each quarter of 2024 was in the range of 4.5 - 5 billion yuan, and there was a significant increase only after JD.com started to layout the food delivery business. Assuming that the revenue of JD Industrial Development, Jingxi, and overseas businesses in the second quarter of 2025 still remained in this range, it is estimated that the operating income of JD Food Delivery in the second quarter was approximately between 8.8 - 9.4 billion yuan.

Figure: Operating income and operating profit of JD.com's new business (including food delivery) Source: Company announcements, compiled by 36Kr

From the perspective of profit, considering that the operating loss of the new business in each quarter of 2024 was within 1 billion yuan, assuming that the operating loss of JD Industrial Development, Jingxi, and overseas businesses in the second quarter of 2025 still remained in this range, it is estimated that the operating loss of JD Food Delivery in the second quarter was approximately 13 billion yuan.

So, how exactly did the loss occur?

By comparing the matching degree of the growth rates of operating income, operating cost, and operating expenses in JD.com's new business segment, it can be found that the revenue growth rate of the new business barely matches the cost growth rate, while the growth rate of operating expenses is significantly too high. Therefore, the year-on-year surge of 12.76 billion yuan in operating expenses is the main factor causing the loss of JD Food Delivery.

Figure: Changes in operating cost and operating expenses of JD.com's new business Source: Company announcements, compiled by 36Kr

For JD.com, operating expenses include four categories: fulfillment expenses, marketing expenses, R & D expenses, and general and administrative expenses. JD.com does not disclose the specific structure of the above four expenses for the new business, but the trend can be seen from the changes in the company's overall expenses.

From the changes in the overall expenses of JD.com Group, the marketing expenses in Q2 2025 increased by about 128% year-on-year to 27.013 billion yuan, the fulfillment expenses increased by about 28.5% year-on-year to 22.145 billion yuan, the general and administrative expenses increased by about 53% year-on-year to 3.266 billion yuan, and the R & D expenses increased by about 26% year-on-year to 5.299 billion yuan.

It is not difficult to find that the growth rate of JD.com's overall marketing expenses significantly deviates from the revenue growth rate. Therefore, the significant increase in marketing expenses (an increase of more than 15 billion yuan year-on-year) is the main reason for the year-on-year surge in the operating expenses of JD Food Delivery, and the significant increase in marketing expenses is mainly due to the subsidies for consumers by JD Food Delivery. From the perspective of the expense ratio, the proportion of JD.com's marketing expenses in the total revenue in Q2 2025 was 7.6%, an increase of 3.5 percentage points compared with the same period last year.

Figure: Changes in JD.com's sales expense ratio Source: Wind, compiled by 36Kr

In addition, it can be seen that the operating cost (14.405 billion yuan) of JD.com's new business in Q2 2025 is greater than the operating income (13.852 billion yuan), and the gross profit is negative. Considering that Meituan generally includes the delivery costs of riders in the operating cost, it is speculated that the operating cost of JD Food Delivery is also mainly the cost of riders (including delivery fees and social security). Since the social security cost of riders is generally a rigid expenditure, if JD Food Delivery wants to achieve positive gross profit, it needs to further expand the revenue scale of the food delivery business in the future.

Of course, in addition to the direct impact on this quarter's profit, the food delivery business has also had some more positive impacts at the operational level.

At the earnings conference call, JD.com once again emphasized that it does not regard the food delivery business as an isolated business segment but deeply integrates it into the JD ecosystem. From the perspective of business synergy, the food delivery business has brought the following changes to JD.com: First, the traffic - attracting effect of the food delivery business has begun to appear. The year-on-year growth rate of JD.com's quarterly active customers (QAC) this quarter has significantly increased, exceeding 40%, and the total number of users has reached a new high; second, the high - frequency usage efficiency brought by the food delivery business has affected the traditional business level. This quarter, the shopping frequency of platform users on JD.com has increased by more than 40% year-on-year, and the shopping frequency of JD PLUS members has increased by more than 50% year-on-year.

Regarding how the food delivery business will cooperate with the overall ecosystem in the future, JD.com further pointed out that in the second quarter, the ability to promote cross - shopping has been built in terms of algorithms and systems, and relevant tools will be launched one after another in the third quarter.

The retail business performs steadily, adding confidence for the development of the food delivery business

Although the market has focused its attention on the food delivery business, it cannot be ignored that the food delivery business has driven JD.com's traditional retail business to perform very well in the second quarter.

In terms of data, JD Retail achieved an operating income of 310.075 billion yuan in the second quarter of 2025, a year-on-year increase of 20.6%; the operating profit was 13.939 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 37.9%, and the operating profit margin increased from 3.9% in the same period last year to 4.5% in Q2 2025. Compared with historical quarters, the revenue growth rate of JD Retail in Q2 2025 reached the highest value since 2023, and the quarterly revenue growth rate showed a continuous upward trend.

Figure: Revenue growth rate of JD Retail Source: Company announcements, compiled by 36Kr

According to the disclosure of the company's final revenue categories, JD.com's revenue mainly includes product revenue (3C electronics and home appliances, daily necessities), platform and advertising service revenue, and logistics and other service revenue. From the growth rate of each revenue item, the growth rate of logistics and other service revenue is the highest, reaching 34.3%, and the growth amount reached 11.675 billion yuan, which is close to the estimated revenue range of the food delivery business mentioned above. Therefore, it can be speculated that JD.com has included the food delivery business in the category of logistics and other service revenue.

Figure: Composition of JD.com's revenue Source: Company announcements, compiled by 36Kr

Specifically, the revenue of 3C electronics and home appliances was 178.982 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 23.4%. The single - quarter revenue reached a historical high; the revenue of daily necessities was 103.432 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.4%. Among them, the revenue growth rates of 3C electronics and home appliances and daily necessities both reached the highest values since 2023.

If the rapid growth of the revenue of 3C electronics and home appliances has benefited to a certain extent from the national subsidies and the dividends brought by the 618 promotion, then the continuous increase in the revenue growth rate of the company's daily necessities business is more due to the internal factors. From the perspective of social retail sales, the growth rate of the total retail sales of consumer goods above the designated size in China in the second quarter was about 9.61%, among which the year-on-year growth rate of daily necessities was 10.81%. The revenue growth rate of JD.com's daily necessities business outperformed the industry average.

In the future, JD.com will strengthen the synergy between the food delivery business and the daily necessities business. At the earnings conference call, JD.com pointed out that "it has been initially observed that food delivery users also have cross - category purchasing behavior in the supermarket category. Facing the large amount of traffic brought by the food delivery business, JD.com's supermarket category will further optimize its operations to better meet the diverse needs of these users." In addition, in terms of instant retail, JD.com's supermarket will also try to enter the instant retail market to expand new business scenarios.

Figure: Quarterly revenue of JD.com's 3C electronics and home appliances business Source: Wind, compiled by 36Kr

Figure: Quarterly revenue of JD.com's daily necessities business Source: Wind, compiled by 36Kr

In addition, from the perspective of the platform and advertising service revenue reflecting the 3P business, the revenue of this business in Q2 2025 was 28.507 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.69%, and the revenue amount also reached a historical high, which means that JD.com's 3P business has begun to make substantial contributions to the performance.

Therefore, if the impact of the food delivery business is not considered, JD.com's retail business is in a very stable growth state, which may also be the confidence for JD.com to develop the food delivery business.

Figure: Revenue of JD.com's e - commerce platform and advertising services Source: Wind, compiled by 36Kr

Summary and outlook

Overall, JD.com's financial report in Q2 2025 shows the characteristics of the retail business exceeding expectations and high investment in the food delivery business.

For JD Food Delivery, which has occupied a place in the food delivery market, if it wants to significantly reduce the impact on the company's overall performance, it needs to cross two thresholds. One is to expand the