JD.com plans to cease the operations of its e-commerce businesses in Indonesia and Thailand in March as the Chinese e-commerce giant is shifting its international focus to the provision of cross-border supply chain solutions.
Beijing-headquartered JD.com, which officially entered the Southeast Asian market over eight years ago, announced on Monday that it will shut down its sites of JD.ID and JD Central on March 31 and March 3, respectively.
“JD.com will continue to serve the global markets, including Southeast Asia, through its supply chain infrastructure, which remains the core of our business. We are developing in international markets by focusing on building a cross-border supply chain network with logistics and warehousing at the core,” said a spokesperson at JD.com.
The moves mark the Chinese company’s official retreat from the increasingly competitive e-commerce arena in Southeast Asia, where the domination of regional champions including Tokopedia, Shopee, Lazada, and Bukalapak has made it difficult for the firm to expand its market share over the years.
JD.ID, which JD.com built in 2015 as a joint venture (JV) with Singapore-based investment firm Provident Capital, was ranked only 10th among the top 10 e-commerce sites in Indonesia in the second quarter of 2022, according to market data provider Statista.
JD.ID was estimated to have 2.34 million monthly web visits, compared to Tokopedia, which led the pack with almost 158.4 million web visits.
Statista ranked Shopee as the second most visited e-commerce site in Indonesia. The e-commerce arm of Singapore-based Sea Ltd was estimated to have 131.3 million monthly web visits.
JD Central, established in 2018 as an e-commerce JV between JD.com and Thai retail giant Central Group, also fell far behind Shopee and Lazada in Thailand, according to a ranking list by New York-based intelligence platform Similarweb.
While industry experts believed that JD.com’s setback in Southeast Asia was a result of its excessive focus on quality and lack of competitive edge, the firm’s spokesperson said that the decision to shut down JD.ID and JD Central represent the Chinese group’s strategic shift of resources towards the development of “cross-border supply chain infrastructure” and the delivery of “supply chain solutions around the world.”
As it casts aside the two e-commerce arms, JD.com is ramping up efforts to expand its supply chain infrastructures in Southeast Asia and worldwide.
JD Property, a JD.com subsidiary that offers infrastructure asset management services and solutions, has already invested in 20 logistics parks in Jakarta, Cikarang, and Karawang in Indonesia since 2022. It provides agile warehousing solutions to corporate clients across the fields of retail, e-commerce, manufacturing, food and beverages, and more.
JD.com also started the construction of two intelligent industrial parks in Vietnam to offer logistics solutions and warehousing space to clients from various industries. One of the parks is located in Tan Duc, a gateway to both Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta; the other is located in Haiphong, which further helps form an infrastructure network that connects the south and north of Vietnam.
In Malaysia, its subsidiary JD Logistics launched a self-operated warehouse in 2022 with the development of its second warehouse underway. JD Logistics also partners with local logistics service providers in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and other countries to power warehouses with JD.com’s advanced intelligent equipment and systems.
Globally, JD.com has recorded about 90 bonded warehouses, international direct mail warehouses, and overseas warehouses, covering an aggregate gross floor area (GFA) of approximately 900,000 square meters as of 2022. Its network of self-operated warehouses now spreads across more than 10 countries such as the US, Germany, France, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia.
