JD.com's recent 2025 financial report presented a dual surprise to the market: a quarterly net loss of 2.7 billion yuan alongside a nearly 10% surge in its stock price.
Following the market close on March 5, 2026, JD.com released its results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2025. The report revealed a net loss attributable to ordinary shareholders of 2.7 billion yuan for Q4, a swing from a profit in the same period last year. Non-GAAP net profit plummeted by 90.3% year-over-year to 1.1 billion yuan.
However, the capital market reaction was unexpectedly positive. On the next trading day, JD.com's Hong Kong-listed shares defied the broader market trend, climbing significantly to close up 9.95%. Its US-listed shares also rose over 6%.
This divergence between financial performance and stock performance raises questions about the underlying signals to the market and the source of investor confidence despite substantial losses.
**Strategic "Bleeding"**
A standalone look at JD.com's Q4 2025 financials shows challenges. Revenue growth slowed markedly to just 1.5% year-over-year, a significant deceleration compared to the 15.78%, 22.4%, and 14.85% growth rates in the first three quarters.
The core reason was pressure on its mainstay business. JD.com's key categories are home appliances and 3C products. These segments experienced high growth in Q4 2024 and the first half of 2025, benefiting from government subsidies. However, by Q4 2025, subsidy policies in many regions were tightened or adjusted, shifting to lotteries or limited-time coupons, which weakened the stimulus effect. Coupled with a high base from the previous year, this led to a 12% year-over-year decline in revenue from electronics and home appliances, directly dragging down JD Retail's revenue, which fell 1.7% to 301.9 billion yuan.
Furthermore, the company swung to a loss. JD.com reported a net loss of 2.7 billion yuan for Q4, compared to a net profit of 9.9 billion yuan a year earlier. Operating profit also turned negative, recording a loss of 5.8 billion yuan versus an 8.5 billion yuan profit previously. For the full year, net profit attributable to ordinary shareholders halved to 19.6 billion yuan.
Slowing revenue was not the primary cause of the loss. In fact, JD.com's core retail business remained profitable in the fourth quarter. The major "bleeding" point was the massive investment in new business initiatives.
These new businesses, including JD Daojia (food delivery), Jingxi, and overseas operations, generated revenue of 14.085 billion yuan in Q4, a surge of 200.9% year-over-year. However, their operating loss was substantial at 14.8 billion yuan. For the full year, new businesses contributed 49.282 billion yuan in revenue, a significant increase of 157.3%, but their annual operating loss reached a staggering 46.641 billion yuan.
Within the new business segment, the food delivery service is the largest contributor to losses. In 2025, JD.com prominently entered the food delivery market. To compete against incumbents Meituan and Ele.me, JD.com adopted an aggressive strategy centered on subsidies.
To build scale rapidly, JD.com implemented highly competitive pricing: offering substantial discounts and free shipping to consumers, low or even zero commissions to merchants, and above-average delivery fees per order to riders. The strategy was effective—over the past year, JD Daojia garnered orders from over 240 million users, capturing a market share exceeding 15%.
But the cost was significant. Marketing expenses for the full year 2025 soared to 84 billion yuan, a 75% increase from 48 billion yuan in 2024. In Q4 alone, marketing开支 grew 50.6% to 25.3 billion yuan, accounting for 7.2% of revenue, up from 4.9% a year ago. Most of this additional spending was directed towards user subsidies, rider incentives, and merchant acquisition.
Beyond explicit subsidies, implicit costs also rose rigidly. Following a commitment to provide social security for full-time riders and the implementation of a "Xiaoge Home" apartment plan, fulfillment costs increased by 25.2% for the full year to 88.2 billion yuan. Q4 fulfillment costs rose 20.7% to 24.3 billion yuan. By the end of 2025, JD.com's total workforce exceeded 900,000 employees, with total human resource expenses reaching 157.2 billion yuan for the year, an increase of 33.7 billion yuan from 2024.
Concurrent investments in other new initiatives like Jingxi, which targets the lower-tier market and is still in its cultivation phase, and the international business Joybuy, which began trial operations in the UK and Germany, required ongoing funding. Strategic R&D in AI technology further diverted resources and exacerbated short-term losses. R&D expenses in Q4 reached 6.7 billion yuan, up 52.0% year-over-year.
**What is the Capital Market Optimistic About?**
Despite the disappointing Q4 figures, the market reaction was positive. This suggests investors looked beyond the quarterly loss towards more encouraging signals.
Analysts point to the resilience of JD.com's core retail business. Despite headwinds in the appliance and 3C categories, daily necessities and platform marketing services showed sustained growth, offsetting some cyclical impact. Revenue from daily necessities grew 12% year-over-year in Q4 to 119.7 billion yuan, marking the fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. Platform and advertising service revenue grew 15% to 30.6 billion yuan.
Profitability-wise, JD Retail achieved an operating profit of 9.8 billion yuan in Q4, with an operating margin of 3.2%, essentially flat compared to 3.3% a year ago. For the full year, the retail operating profit was 51.4 billion yuan, with the margin improving to 4.6% from 4.0% in 2024. This core profitability resilience bolstered confidence in the company's long-term operational capability.
The ongoing optimization of the revenue mix also signaled improving profit quality. Service revenue for 2025 grew 23.6% to 285.3 billion yuan, accounting for a record 21.8% of total revenue. The increasing proportion of higher-margin service income indicates JD.com's gradual shift away from reliance on product sales towards becoming a retail service provider.
A narrowing loss in the new business segment also alleviated some market concerns about prolonged profit pressure. The operating loss for new businesses decreased from 15.736 billion yuan in Q3 2025 to 14.801 billion yuan in Q4. JD Daojia has seen its losses narrow sequentially for four consecutive quarters since launch. Management indicated that if market competition stabilizes, total investment in the food delivery business would decrease in 2026 compared to 2025.
Substantial shareholder returns further boosted market confidence. Despite the quarterly loss, JD.com maintained its commitment to shareholders. In 2025, the company repurchased approximately $3 billion worth of shares and announced an annual cash dividend of about $1.4 billion, representing a total shareholder return yield of around 10%. This commitment to returning value, even under pressure, signaled confidence in long-term cash flow and profitability.
Part of the positive reaction likely stemmed from market sentiment repair. JD.com's stock had declined significantly over the preceding year, with a peak-to-trough drop of nearly 50% from October 2024 highs to March 5, 2026, suggesting many negative factors were already priced in. The earnings release may have triggered a rebound as some investors saw the results as a clearing event.
**Strategic Focus for 2026**
If 2025 was a year of strategic investment in new businesses and AI, 2026 is positioned as a critical stage for execution, efficiency improvement, and value realization.
For its core "ballast" business, JD Retail, management expects mid-single-digit revenue growth in 2026, driven by more diverse factors. For appliances and electronics, facing pressure from a high base and rising component costs in the first half, JD.com plans to strengthen supply chains, expand offline channels, and enhance service. It also aims to use AI to develop new product forms for a potential recovery in the second half.
For daily necessities, the company will continue tapping into the vast potential of supermarkets, fashion, and health categories, leveraging user growth from new services like food delivery and Jingxi to drive cross-selling synergies.
Management's approach to new businesses appears more measured for 2026. For JD Daojia, the focus will shift to healthy scale growth, optimizing unit economics, and realizing synergies with core retail, such as driving traffic and creating cross-selling opportunities. It will emphasize "quality delivery" and plans to cover all Tier 1 and 2 cities by the end of 2026.
Jingxi will continue focusing on the lower-tier market. Management expects to slightly increase investment while optimizing its unit economic model for sustainable growth.
International business, deemed a top strategic priority, follows a "heavy-asset + localization" model. Following the acquisition of Germany's Ceconomy in 2025, the Joybuy platform is set to launch formally in six European countries in March 2026, supported by its own Joy Express logistics network. Management emphasized disciplined, phased investment to ensure controlled scaling.
AI remains a core strategic direction. JD.com's self-developed "JoyAI" model already supports over 2,000 business scenarios. In 2026, the company will intensify efforts to integrate AI across core operations: enhancing AI-powered shopping guides and recommendations, optimizing procurement and logistics with AI, expanding autonomous delivery, and collaborating with brands on AI-driven hardware.
While management is optimistic about a performance recovery in 2026, JD.com undeniably faces ongoing pressures: persistent challenges in its core retail categories due to high base effects and cost inflation, the integration of European operations, continued AI R&D investment, and the task of reducing losses in the food delivery business. The critical question remains whether investors will grant this long-distance runner sufficient patience.
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