On December 11, JD Industrials made its debut on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. This highly anticipated IPO attracted HKD 2.827 billion in subscriptions. By the close of its first trading day, the stock price remained flat at the issue price of HKD 14.1, giving the company a total market capitalization of HKD 37.9 billion.
Fundamentally, the company turned profitable in 2023 and achieved a net profit of CNY 760 million in 2024. In the first half of 2025, net profit further grew to CNY 450 million, demonstrating a positive trend. However, for an innovative company operating in a vast industrial landscape, beyond financial metrics—including comparisons with peers—the focus should be on its business model, its appeal to potential clients, and the positive impact its listing could have on the industry.
This is not merely a corporate listing but also a recognition by capital markets of China's industrial internet enterprises and their exploratory efforts in this field. JD Industrials should not be narrowly categorized as an industrial e-commerce platform. Instead, it aims to address three core challenges in the MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Operations) industry: breadth vs. depth, heavy vs. light assets, and domestic vs. international markets.
In the broader context of digital-real integration, JD Industrials, aspiring to become a supply chain service provider, seeks to offer transformative solutions for upgrading Chinese industrial supply chains.
**Breadth vs. Depth** MRO refers to industrial supplies used for maintenance, repair, and operations. These are items that don’t directly form part of the final product but are critical to uninterrupted production. MRO products are characterized by extreme variety, fragmented demand, and high management costs.
The industry has long relied on multi-tier distribution systems, with suppliers being small and scattered, resulting in low market concentration. In 2024, China’s top five MRO players accounted for just 1.5% of the market, far below the 30%-45% concentration seen in the mature U.S. market.
Traditional procurement processes are inefficient, with mid-sized manufacturers typically managing 50-80 MRO suppliers and facing lead times of 7-15 days. Increasingly, companies are consolidating suppliers to streamline procurement.
B2B platforms like JD Industrials offer a solution. The company leverages its 81.1 million SKUs and proprietary supply chain AI model, JoyIndustrial, to standardize data and improve efficiency. Its Mercator Standard Product Library and AI-driven governance tools tackle the industry’s "one item, multiple codes" problem, enabling both breadth and depth in service.
**Heavy vs. Light Assets** MRO businesses traditionally require heavy investments in infrastructure, leading to significant financial burdens. For example, Zhenkunhang, a competitor, operates a vast logistics network but remains unprofitable, with its stock price below the IPO level.
In contrast, JD Industrials adopts a lighter asset model by digitizing fulfillment processes. Instead of relying solely on owned warehouses, it connects with social inventory through data. In one case, it sourced emergency supplies for a nuclear power plant from tens of thousands of suppliers nationwide within 72 hours.
This approach, supported by JD Group’s logistics network, allows JD Industrials to deliver "heavy" capabilities with relatively "light" investments.
**Domestic vs. International** China’s MRO market, valued at CNY 3.7 trillion in 2024, is three times larger than the U.S. market and is growing at a 4.2% CAGR. Digital MRO solutions, supported by policy tailwinds, are expanding even faster at 21.7% CAGR.
Unlike the U.S., where the market is consolidated under a few giants like Grainger, China’s MRO sector is still fragmented. JD Industrials aims to embed itself deeply in clients’ supply chains, transitioning from a "pharmacy" to a "hospital" role.
Internationally, JD Industrials is following Chinese manufacturers overseas, offering tailored supply chain solutions for different stages of expansion. Its services now cover markets like Indonesia, Brazil, and Hungary.
By combining digital and physical capabilities, JD Industrials is crafting a uniquely Chinese answer to industrial supply chain transformation.
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