HONG KONG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--JD Logistics made its debut on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong on Friday, May 28th (2618.HK). The business joins its parent organization JD.com (9618.HK) which completed a secondary listing on HKEx on June 18th of 2020 and the healthcare arm of the country’s biggest internet company JD Health (6618.HK), which was listed on December 8th of last year, making it the third JD entity to list.
The opening price for the company started at HK$40.36, and they raised an estimated HK$24.11 billion on the day of their initial public offering. According to the company’s prospectus published on May 17th, 2021 by Richard Qiangdong Liu, JD.com’s chairman and CEO, the proceeds from JD Logistics’ IPO will be used to upgrade and expand its logistics networks, develop advanced technologies to be used in its supply chain solutions and logistics services, expand the breadth and depth of existing solutions, penetrating existing customers and attracting potential customers though investments in sales and marketing personnel as well as industry solutions development, and toward general corporate purchases and working capital needs.
To commemorate the debut, JD Logistics hosted a celebration ceremony at JD.com’s headquarters in Beijing. CEO of JD Logistics Rui Yu said during his remarks at the ceremony: “JD self-built its own logistics network in 2007. In the past 14 years, JD Logistics has taken the improvement of the customer experience as its responsibility. Through unrelenting investment in logistics infrastructure and technology, JD Logistics has launched services such as ‘211’ (same- and next-day delivery) and 24-hour delivery in tens of thousands of counties and towns, redefining logistics service standards and providing JD.com customers with the best experience in the world.”
Connecting virtually to the exchange in Hong Kong, nine representatives including JD Logistics customers, clients and frontline employees, Willie Tan, executive officer of Skechers Greater China, Southeast Asia and South Korea, and JD Logistics’ six-axis robot, a logistics robot arm used in the company’s warehouse automation, all took to the stage to virtually ring the gong.
Yu closed: “In the future, JD Logistics will take ‘driving superior efficiency and sustainability for the global supply chain’ as its mission and use its technology-driven integrated supply chain to maximize its support of the real economy and the development of new businesses and continue to provide clients with the a high quality experience and enable them to enjoy the most trustworthy service. We will also work with our partners to reduce social logistics costs and drive efficiency improvement for business and society.”
About JD Logistics
JD Logistics became a stand-alone subsidiary of JD.com in 2017. That year, the company began offering its integrated supply chain solutions such as warehousing, transportation, delivery and after-sale services to e-commerce sellers and other companies. By 2020, it was the largest integrated supply chain and logistics provider in China by revenue. The company provides services to more than 190,000 enterprise customers around the world, and operates a network of over 1,000 warehouses covering approximately 21 million square meters. In addition to its own warehouse fleet, the company has over 1,400 cloud warehouses operated by third-party warehouse operators, allowing existing warehouses to become intelligent and digitized through JD’s technology. With over 240,000 personnel including 190,000 in-house couriers who deliver across the country, JD Logistics’ large network allows it’s reach to cover some of the country’s most remote locations from isolated villages to tiny islands and achieve rates of approximately 90 percent of orders delivered same-day or next-day. The company also has 32 highly automated warehouses across China, including a fully unmanned warehouse in Shanghai which has the ability to process more than 1.3 million orders per day during peak seasons.
About Richard Qiangdong Liu
Richard Qiangdong Liu founded JD.com in 1998. The business started as a stall in an electronics bazaar and grew to become a successful electronics chain with twelve brick-and-mortar locations. In 2004, Liu began the process of transitioning his retail business from in-store to online along with expanding outside of electronics to other retail categories. The company also began developing its own logistical network of drivers and warehouses in 2007, allowing it to greatly expand its reach to more remote locations such as lower-tier cities. Today, JD.com is responsible for providing over 400 million active users in China with everything from fresh groceries to luxury clothing, and is the largest retailer in China by revenue. Liu has made technological advancements a focus of the company, and has sought to develop and implement drones, robots, artificial intelligence and big data in JD.com. In 2020 he updated the company’s strategic positioning to reflect this, identifying it as a “supply-chain based technology and service company” in a nod to its expansion into sectors outside of retail such as healthcare and fintech.
Liu has won numerous awards for his work as CEO of JD.com. CCTV, China’s largest television network, named Liu the “2011 China Economic Person of the Year” and was also given the “2011 China Business Leader” award. Fortune China placed him on their “2012 Chinese Businessmen” list, and in 2015 Fortune Magazine named him one of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.”
