JD.com posts Q1 revenue beat, announces leadership shake-up

Investing.com -- U.S.-listed shares in JD.com (NASDAQ:JD) moved higher in premarket trading on Thursday after the Chinese e-commerce firm posted a better-than-expected top-line result in the first quarter and announced that chief executive Lei Xu will step down.

Net revenues for the three months ended on March 31 rose to RMB 242.96 billion, representing a 1.4% increase compared to the same period in 2022. Bloomberg consensus estimates had called for the figure to come in at RMB 240.49B.

Net service revenues in particular jumped by over 34% to RMB 47.39B, making up a fifth of total sales and offsetting weakness in product demand. The company said this uptick was thanks to "a record number of third-party merchants" being attracted to its e-commerce platform.

The growth helped JD.com swing to a net income attributable to ordinary shareholders of RMB 6.3B. In the corresponding time frame last year, JD.com reported a net loss of RMB 3.0B.

“JD saw strong growth in profitability in the first quarter as we continued to streamline our operations, optimize our product portfolio and expand our service offerings,” said outgoing CEO Lei Xu in a statement.

Meanwhile, current chief financial officer Sandy Xu was tapped to take over at the helm of the group. The appointment comes as JD.com faces heavy competition from peers like PDD Holdings (NASDAQ:PDD) and ByteDance, as well as a slow rebound in consumer confidence following the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions in China.