JD.Com Rakes In $24.6B During 618 Shopping Festival

JD.com‘s annual 618 Shopping Festival was a big success for the Chinese eCommerce player, raking in $24.6 billion, according to new data from Coresight Research. In a report, Coresight Research said that the shopping festival, which ran from June 1 through June 18, saw a year-over-year increase of 37 percent. Mobile phones, PCs, air conditioners, digital products, and food and beverages were the leading categories.

For the event, JD.com partnered with more than a half a million physical retail stores. The sales at the physical stores saw a big jump on June 18 with JD Daojia, JD.com’s online-to-offline service to deliver groceries and fresh food, driving the growth. Meanwhile, Walmart participated again this year and saw sales jump fourfold, which was tiny compared to local Chinese retailers. That Yonghui Supermarket, which saw sales increase five times last year, and Century Lianhua, which had sales that were up seven times compared to a year ago.

According to Coresight, on June 18, sales of mobile phones on JD.com reached 10,000 units in eight seconds and $15.5 million in 30 seconds. During the 18-day shopping event, loans made by JD Finance to business partners and users jumped 348 percent compared to a year ago. JD Baitiao, a JD Finance product that gives credit to consumers to make installment payments, jumped 167 percent year over year.

Coresight wrote, “In our previous report on JD.com’s 618 Shopping Festival, we pointed out that the festival is no longer just about incredible shopping discounts, but also showcases JD.com’s advances, especially with regards to the supply chain. During the 18-day shopping event, JD.com utilized 27 unmanned warehouses, and daily order-processing power increased by 1,415 percent year over year. Over 90 percent of orders on JD.com-operated stores achieved same-day or two-day delivery during the 618 sale period.”

Though the 618 Shopping Festival was created to celebrate the foundation of JD.com, in recent years, it has become a popular mid-year shopping festival for others as well. Tmall, the Alibaba eCommerce service, also participated in the event.