On the evening of April 18th, JD Group's announcement of an updated share repurchase plan attracted attention.
According to the announcement, as of the quarter ending March 31, 2024, the company has repurchased a total of 87.5 million Class A common shares (equivalent to 43.8 million American depositary shares), totaling $1.2 billion (approximately RMB 8.7 billion). The total number of shares repurchased by the company in the first quarter of 2024 was approximately 2.8% of its outstanding common shares as of December 31, 2023.
The announcement also shows that according to the company's previous share repurchase plan, which expired on March 17, 2024, the company has repurchased a total of approximately $2.1 billion as of March 17, 2024. According to the company's new share repurchase plan (valid until March 18, 2027), as of March 31, 2024, the company has repurchased a total of approximately $500 million. As of March 31, 2024, the remaining amount under the company's new share repurchase plan is $2.5 billion.
This also means that the new repurchase plan took effect from March 18th to March 31st this year, and JD Group had already spent about $500 million on repurchase in just over ten days, indicating a significant acceleration in its repurchase pace.
Looking back, on March 6th, JD Group released its Q4 and full year performance for 2023. In the fourth quarter, the revenue reached 306.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.6%; The annual revenue was 1084.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.7%. The net profit attributable to shareholders in the fourth quarter was 3.4 billion yuan, compared to 3 billion yuan in the same period last year, a year-on-year increase of 11.8%. The net profit attributable to shareholders for the whole year of 2023 was 24.2 billion yuan, compared to 10.4 billion yuan in the same period last year, a year-on-year increase of 132.8%.
JD Group announced simultaneously that its board of directors has approved annual cash dividends, with a total dividend amount of approximately $1.2 billion, exceeding the $1 billion in 2023. The board of directors of JD Group has also approved a new share repurchase plan, which, upon the expiration and effectiveness of the existing share repurchase plan, can repurchase shares worth no more than $3 billion within the next 36 months up to March 2027.
After the latest financial report and repurchase plan were released, Macquarie's financial statement report stated that JD.com surprised the market by increasing shareholder returns through dividends and repurchases. The management has a positive attitude towards this year's performance, as it has summarized the adjustment of international business and pointed to the recovery stage, maintaining its "neutral" rating. The target price has been raised to HKD 105 to reflect improved shareholder returns.
In fact, in addition to continuously increasing repurchase efforts in the secondary market, JD.com is also continuously enhancing the construction of video content ecosystems such as live streaming at the operational level. Recently, the AI digital character "Procurement and Sales Dongge" based on Liu Qiangdong has attracted attention for its upcoming sales promotion.
On the afternoon of April 16th, Liu Qiangdong, the founder of JD.com Group, made his debut in the form of an AI digital person for purchasing and selling products at JD.com Supermarket and JD.com Home Appliance Sales Live Room. It is reported that the live broadcast of "Procurement and Sales Dongge AI Digital Person" utilizes the AI digital person self-developed by JD Cloud Yanxi, which is the first entrepreneurial digital person live broadcast form in the industry.
According to data disclosed by JD.com, in less than an hour, the number of views in the live broadcast room exceeded 20 million, and the total transaction volume of the entire live broadcast exceeded 50 million. Among them, in the JD Supermarket sales live broadcast room, within 40 minutes, the overall order volume of the live broadcast room exceeded 100000, creating the highest number of viewers since the launch of the JD Supermarket sales live broadcast room. During the live broadcast, "Procurement and Sales Dongge AI Digital Person" explained 13 products, and the overall order volume increased by 8 times compared to last Sunday.
It can be said that with the live broadcast of "Purchasing and Selling Dongge AI Digital People", JD will further enhance the construction of the content ecosystem and become an industry consensus. In addition, on April 10th, JD.com officially announced that it will invest billions of cash and traffic as rewards to attract more original authors and high-quality content institutions to settle in. This is also another major move in the consumer market for JD's enhanced content.
The person in charge of JD's content ecosystem stated that excellent video creators are an important force in promoting the prosperity of the content ecosystem. On the one hand, JD.com will provide cash subsidies to experts in over 20 creative fields, including digital 3C, home appliances, mother and baby, pets, fashion, sports, beauty and personal care, health, and automotive products.
On the other hand, JD.com claims to bring more exposure opportunities for high-quality and original videos. At present, JD.com is actively preparing for the incubation of top talents and plans to select the top 100 talents by the end of the year. It has already invested billions of cash in the reserve stage of talents and will provide more rewards in the future.
In fact, JD's layout in the content ecosystem has already begun. The person in charge of JD.com told reporters that in terms of video content, JD.com began to focus on "personal testing" last year, with tens of thousands of people creating tens of millions of videos around "personal trial and evaluation". The indicators of orders, user scale, and duration have all increased by 300% year-on-year, and in the first quarter of this year, it still grew at a high speed of 100% year-on-year.
The latest released Research Report on the Development of China's Online Audiovisual (2024) shows that 71.2% of the interviewed users shop online because they watch short videos and live broadcasts, and more than 40% of Internet users believe that short videos and live broadcasts are their main consumption channels, and content consumption is becoming the key track for all platforms.
According to the latest research report released by China Merchants Securities, it is expected that JD Group's revenue growth in Q1 will be stable, and it is optimistic about its increased emphasis on content ecological construction. "We expect JD Group's total revenue to increase by 6.3% year-on-year, JD Retail revenue to increase by 6.0% year-on-year, and Non GAAP's net profit attributable to shareholders to be 7.39 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of -2.6%. JD's 2024 business adjustment will release its flexibility, and in the long run, JD's self operated supply chain barriers will be solid, with efficient user investment and the release of 3P business vitality expected to maintain steady growth."