Pirelli inks strategic partnership with JD

With China supporting more innovative measures to further spur consumption, Italian tire maker Pirelli and Chinese online retailer JD reached a strategic partnership earlier this week in Shanghai to meet the personalized and differentiated consumer demand.

Under the deal, the Italian company will sell its latest tires, including P5 Touring and winter tires, on JD's self-operated platform to enrich its goal of using offline-to-online business modes to achieve further growth in Chinese market.

E-commerce has gradually grown from a "new power" to a "key power" that promotes China's economic growth to pursue high-quality growth, said Giuliano Menassi, CEO of Pirelli for the APAC region.

"A new round of technological and industrial revolution in recent years has spurred a boom in digital technologies, deepened the integration of industries and allowed the service economy to flourish," he said.

Following this trend, Menassi said Pirelli has established a data-sharing system with original equipment manufacturer partners, replacement channel distributors and a series of external sources to better predict differentiated demand and the potential of the various geographical areas.

China's ongoing efforts to spur new forms of consumption will help stimulate market players' vitality, boost domestic demand and support economic recovery, said Guo Xin, a marketing professor at the Beijing Technology and Business University.

"Confronting a grim situation both at home and abroad, China will come up with more targeted measures to boost consumption, such as promoting new types of consumption and creating a better consumption environment," said Qian Fangli, director-general of the department of electronic commerce and informatization at the Ministry of Commerce.

With booming internet, digital and other information technologies, Qian said China has attained a good development base in terms of e-commerce, new retail, mobile payment, logistics and related fields.