JD.com vs. Pinduoduo: Which Chinese E-Commerce Stock is a Better Buy?

With total revenue of $1.543 trillion in 2021, China has become the largest e-commerce market in the world, even outpacing the United States. The Chinese e-commerce market size increased by 15% on a year-over-year basis in 2021, thus contributing to the worldwide growth rate of 29%.

Revenue in the global e-commerce market is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 11.35% over the next three years, hitting $5.726 trillion by 2025,Statista reports. This growth rate should be achieved due to e-commerce expansion in East and Southeast Asia amid their augmenting middle class and poor offline shopping infrastructure.

With this in mind, today, I am going to analyze and compare two Chinese stocks, JD.com, Inc. ($JD.com(JD)$ ) and Pinduoduo Inc. ($Pinduoduo Inc.(PDD)$ )$), to determine which one is a better buy at the moment.

Founded in 2006, JD is one of the largest companies in the Chinese e-commerce market. It operates across three business segments: JD Retail, JD Logistics, and New Businesses. PDD is a Shanghai-based e-commerce platform that operates a mobile platform, Pinduoduo, offering a wide range of products.

Year-to-Date (YTD), shares of JD have dropped about 12%, while PDD stock has plunged 31%.

Recent Developments

On March 13th,JD.com announced that its subsidiary, JD Logistics, had agreed to purchase Chinese logistics firm Deppon Logistics. The deal is valued at about 9 billion yuan ($1.42 billion) and aims to expand JD’s network infrastructure in China. Under the terms of the deal, JD Logistics will acquire a 99.99% equity stake in Deppon Holdco, which owns about 66.5% of Deppon Logistics, with a follow-up launch of a mandatory general offer for all Deppon shares at 13.15 yuan ($2) a share.

Financial Overview & Analysts Estimates

In the fourth quarter, ended December 31st, 2021, JD’s total revenue rose 23.0% year-over-year to $43.3 billion, driven by a 22.1% YoY increase in net product revenues and a 28.3% YoY increase in net service revenues. Moreover, the company’s top-line figure stood in line with the Wall Street revenue consensus.

JD’s Non-GAAP EBITDA was up 56.2% year-over-year to $0.7 billion in Q4, while annual active customer accounts rose by 20.7% YoY to 569.7 million in 2021. The company’s fourth-quarter net loss stood at RMB5.2 billion (US$0.8 billion) compared to a net income of RMB24.3 billion as of 4Q2020. However, its Non-GAAP EPADS came in at $0.35, beating analysts’ estimates by $0.08.

The company’s EPS is expected to decrease 21.17% year-over-year to $0.30 in its first quarter of 2022. At the same time, analysts expect JD’s revenue to advance 19.63% year-over-year to $37.77 billion in the current quarter.

On March 21st,Pinduoduo released earnings for the fourth quarter of 2021. In Q4, the company’s total net revenues increased by just 3% year-over-year to $4.27 billion, mainly due to an increase in revenues from online marketing services and transaction services. However, the company missed analysts’ revenue estimates by $440 million. Besides, Non-GAAP net income grew to $1.33 billion in Q4, leading to a Non-GAAP EPS of $0.92, which was well above analysts’ consensus of $0.37.

It is also important to note that the average monthly active users in the fourth quarter came in at 733.4 million, representing a modest 2% year-over-year increase.

Currently,Wall Street expects PDD’s EPS to improve in the first quarter of 2022 to $0.36 a sharecompared to its year-ago figure of ($0.24). However, analysts expect its first-quarter revenue to decrease 6.11% YoY to $3.26 billion.

Comparative Valuation

In terms of Forward P/E,JD is currently trading at 29.66x, which is higher than PDD,whose multiple is currently standing at 20.21x. However, both companies trade with a premium compared to the sector’s median threshold of 13.36x.

When it comes to the Forward EV/Sales multiple, PDD’s EV/Sales multiple of 2.22x is about 382.6% higher than JD’s 0.46x.

The Bottom Line

While both JD and PDD are expected to gain from the e-commerce industry’s growth, I believe JD.com is currently the better buy, based on its higher top-line growth, better users growth, superior growth prospects, and relatively cheaper valuation.

Disclaimer: Investing carries risk. This is not financial advice. The above content should not be regarded as an offer, recommendation, or solicitation on acquiring or disposing of any financial products, any associated discussions, comments, or posts by author or other users should not be considered as such either. It is solely for general information purpose only, which does not consider your own investment objectives, financial situations or needs. TTM assumes no responsibility or warranty for the accuracy and completeness of the information, investors should do their own research and may seek professional advice before investing.

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  • ilango007
    ·2022-03-27
    could you compare JD and baba
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  • EltonSimon
    ·2022-03-25
    Good question
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  • MarLar
    ·2022-03-29
    👍👍
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  • Tyliew
    ·2022-03-27
    [得意]
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  • Wangal
    ·2022-03-27
    👍
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  • 明明白白_1099
    ·2022-03-26
    👍🏻
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  • limjxj
    ·2022-03-26
    ok
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  • MonaMaMa
    ·2022-03-25
    Ok
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  • Anyon
    ·2022-03-25
    stonks
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  • 2f47fb42
    ·2022-03-25
    Hi
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  • 炸猪排
    ·2022-03-25
    ok
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  • meehie
    ·2022-03-25
    tks sharing
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  • ElyFung
    ·2022-03-25
    J
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  • aplusz
    ·2022-03-25
    ok
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  • Oppa
    ·2022-03-25
    wow
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  • WeiLee
    ·2022-03-26
    baba
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