JD FINANCE

Founders: Richard Liu (Liu Qiangdong)
Key people: Richard Liu (CEO)
Number of employees: 122,405 (Mar 31, 2017)

JD.com (Chinese: 京东商城; pinyin: Jīngdōng Shāngchéng), also known as Jingdong and formerly called 360buy, is a Chinese e-commerce company headquartered in Beijing. It is one of the two largest B2C online retailers in China by transaction volume and revenue, a member of the Fortune Global 500 and a major competitor to Alibaba-run Tmall. As of March 2017 it currently has 236.5 million active customer accounts.

The company was founded by Liu Qiangdong in July 1998, and its B2C platform went online in 2004. It started as an online magneto-optical store, but soon diversified, selling electronics, mobile phones, computers, etc. Jingdong Mall changed the domain name to 360buy.com in June 2007, and to JD.com in 2013. At the same time, JD.com announced its new logo and mascot.

History

• June 1998 – The company was founded as Jingdong Century Trading Co., Ltd selling magneto-optical in Beijing, China.
• January 2004 – The company’s B2C site went online as jdlaser.com
• January 2006 – Shanghai subsidiary established
• January 2007 – Guangzhou subsidiary established
• June 2007 – began using the domain name 360buy.com, and the company name was changed to Jingdong Mall.
• December 2010 – 360buy.com started online bookstore. CDs, DVDs and ebooks were added in the following months.
• April 2011 – 360buy.com launched platform named “POP” for brand owners.
• October 2012 – en.360buy.com was launched for the international market
• March 2013 – the company’s domain name was changed to JD.com.
• March 2014 – Tencent acquires a 15% stake in JD.com by paying cash and handing over its e-commerce businesses Paipai, QQ Wanggou and a stake in Yixun to JD.com, in order to build a stronger competitor to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
• April 2014 – Subsidiary’s Lawsuit Against JD.com Accepted By Court
• June 2015 – JD.com launch the Russian site aims to expand its business to global.
• June 2016 – Wal-Mart sells its Chinese e-Commerce business to JD.com in exchange for a 5% equity stake valued at $1.5 Billion