JD inks deals to widen scope of business

Technology and innovation, including the application of artificial intelligence, big data and robotics, continue to help China's e-commerce companies drive business while consolidating their retail infrastructure and expanding their ties with foreign partners.

At the recently concluded 2020 Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, in Las Vegas, China's Nasdaq-listed JD announced a series of contracts with several partners, including HP, Microsoft and Kingston, to meet the needs of its more than 330 million Chinese consumers.

One of the two major business to business, or B2C, online retailers in China, JD reported revenue of $67.2 billion in 2018. At CES, the company also unveiled its intentions to move into other areas, including gaming and data storage, as well as enhancing customer satisfaction by improving its omnichannel, which includes online and bricks-and-mortar businesses.

Among the contracts, JD signed a deal with HP in the gaming PC segment after HP launched its gaming brand OMEN and related gaming PC series.

As HP's Best Worldwide Partner for OMEN by HP Growth in 2019, JD plans to launch 100 C2M, or consumer-to-manufacturer, products in the next two years.

With Microsoft China, JD will promote a trial experience to target Office 365 users, the omnichannel retail experience in particular. The two companies already offer Microsoft Re-imagined Retail at JD's Retail Experience shops in cities, including Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province; Suzhou in Jiangsu and Meizhou in Guangdong.

Separately, in the next three years, JD and flash-drive manufacturer Kingston are looking at a potential $800 million in sales after the two renewed their second 10-year partnership.

Ren Tao, the general manager of JD's computer and digital products operation, said the "new commitments" are being executed through a "strong partnership, which is forged in trust".

Meanwhile, as Western Digital's Worldwide Most Valuable Partner for 2019, JD will work with Western Digital to strengthen services in tailored products, supply chains and marketing, to help Western Digital realize sales growth in the world's second-largest economy.

Beijing-based JD was established in 1998, originally as a bricks-and-mortar store before gradually launching its online business starting in 2004. Following its initial public offering in 2014 in New York, JD opened an R&D center in Silicon Valley.

Currently, its 17,000 engineers at home and abroad focus on data science, artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, automation, robotics and autonomous vehicle systems. Their research findings are applied to intelligent pricing, to inventory management and to fraud detection.

On Nov 11, the company launched JD E-SPACE, a custom-built, 50,000-square-meter store in Chongqing, Southwest China, to provide consumers a hands-on shopping experience. Customers can check out products including the Microsoft Surface Pro 7 and Surface Laptop 3, by scanning bar codes.