JD.com's Q4 Results: What You Need To Know

Shares of JD.com, Inc. JD were higher Thursday after the Chinese e-commerce giant reported its fourth-quarter results.

What Happened: JD.com reported fourth-quarter revenue of $34.4 billion, up 31.4% year-over-year, and its non-GAAP earnings per share jumped over 175% to 23 cents.

Analysts, on average, estimated EPS of 19 cents on revenue of $33.78 billion.

The core retail business fetched revenue of $31.97 million, roughly a 28% increase. Revenue from new businesses — including logistics services provided to third parties, overseas business, technology initiatives, as well as asset management services — more than doubled to $2.3 billion.

Operating cash flow for the full year was at $6.5 billion, and free cash flow was at $5.4 billion.

JD.com said its annual active customer accounts increased 30.3% to 471.9 million.

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"Our operational efficiency continued to improve driven by technology and innovation. We have also made progress in a number of new businesses that we have been incubating, including the successful IPO of JD Health, the submission of JD Logistics's listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the progress of JD Property's series A financing," JD.com's CFO Sandy Su said in a statement. 

Why It's Important: JD.com, though operating in a market with huge addressable opportunity, is up against domestic rivals such as Alibaba Group Holding Limited BABA.

The company could also face some difficult comparisons following the COVID-19-driven strength in e-commerce in 2020. 

The fourth-quarter numbers are a testament to JD.com's resilience and strong operational performance even as it evolves as a supply chain-based technology and service company, with increasingly diversified revenue sources. 

JD Price Action: At last check, JD.com shares were adding 0.7% to $89.96. 

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A JD courier. Courtesy photo.