Quite the time for e-commerce right now. After fantastic numbers from Wayfair, The Hut Group and others, it is now JD.com's turn.
Jingdong GMV for the first quarter of 2017 increased by 42% to 184.1 billion yuan (US$26.7 billion) from 129.3 billion yuan in Q1 2016. Annual active customer accounts increased by 40% to 236.5 million in the twelve months ended March 31, 2017, from 169.1 million in the twelve months ended March 31, 2016.
JD.com had approximately 120,000 merchants on its online marketplace as of April 30, 2017, and a total of 122,405 full-time employees as of March 31, 2017.
It's spinning off its online payments and finance division and building warehouses and drone delivery networks to become one of Asia's dominant e-commerce players. Its battle with larger domestic rival Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. may now be starting to spread to Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries.
It's said to be in talks to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into Indonesian e-commerce platform Tokopedia, which could form the basis of a bigger push into the region. But it's already facing competition from Alibaba's Lazada, which has a headstart in key countries such as Singapore.
And finally, here's a fun bonus fact you probably did not see coming.
JD.com is planning to sell Internet-connected smart refrigerators.
JD.com's founder Liu Qiangdong on Tuesday made a post on a Chinese social media platform announcing that the e-commerce platform will start selling its own smart refrigerators.
"After three years of research and development, the JD.com refrigerator will go on sale. It will be more than just a giant box of food. Instead, it will be a service center for healthy diets and will also provide sales of fruits and vegetables," wrote Liu.
With the installation of cameras and image recognition technology, the user will know what is exactly inside and when the food will expire. A user can check all information via an app, and buy more food if the refrigerator is nearly empty at JD.com.
The smart machine can also learn your habits, according to Liu, and recommends that food can be purchased on the e-commerce website.
Smart fridges are, of course, the zombies of the Internet of Things. So, we'll see.