Walmart's Move to Sell Stake in JD.com and JD.com's Responses

TapTechNews August 21st news, there was previously news that Walmart was seeking to raise up to 3.74 billion US dollars (TapTechNews note: currently about 26.697 billion yuan) by selling its stake in JD.com, triggering a 9% plunge in JD.com's US shares after hours.

JD.com responded to this news today, saying:

We are full of confidence in the future cooperation between the two sides.

Walmart China said:

Walmart's strategy in recent years has remained consistent, achieving success in various global markets by timely adjusting the asset portfolio. JD.com has been our valuable partner for the past eight years, and the two sides will continue to maintain business cooperation in the future. This decision allows us to better focus on the strong development in China, including the operation of Walmart Supercenters and Sam's Club stores, and allocate assets to other priority matters. We will continue to provide high-quality services to customers and members in China and globally.

Walmart obtained these shares when it sold its Chinese e-commerce business No. 1 Store in 2016 in exchange for a 5% stake in JD.com.

JD.com's revenue in the second quarter of 2024 was 291.4 billion yuan, an increase of 1.2% year-on-year compared to the second quarter of 2023; the net profit was 12.6 billion yuan, an increase of 92.1% year-on-year. JD.com CEO Xu Ran said in the financial report: Looking forward to the future, we will continue to focus on our own advantages, enhancing the user experience, price competitiveness and platform ecosystem, and we believe this is the basis for ensuring sustainable growth in the next few years.

JD.com announced in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange today that it spent about 390 million US dollars (currently about 2.78 billion yuan) to repurchase its shares on August 21, 2024, and has fully used the repurchase limit of the 3 billion US dollars share repurchase plan approved in March 2024.