China's JD.com posts 22.4% quarterly sales growth

JD.com saw a jump in its second-quarter revenue Thursday, as the Chinese retail giant saw increasing user traffic despite fierce competition in the country's e-commerce and food delivery sectors.

In recent years, the Beijing-based shopping platform has faced pressure from a persistent domestic consumption slump and increased competition with its primary rival, Alibaba.

JD.com achieved net revenue of 356.7 billion yuan (49.8 billion dollars) in the three-month period ending June 30, up 22.4 percent on-year, according to results published to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Net income, however, came in at 6.2 billion yuan for the quarter, down from 12.6 billion yuan during the same period last year.

In the second quarter, the platform saw "sustained momentum" across its core retail business as well as its food delivery service, said JD.com CEO Sandy Xu.

"In the second quarter, we saw robust growth in user traffic, quarterly active customers, and user shopping frequency on JD's platform," Xu added.

JD.com launched its own meal delivery service in February in its bid to challenge dominant provider Meituan.

The company had waived delivery fees this year for eateries that registered before May 1, in an attempt to grab market share from Meituan and Alibaba's Ele.me.

JD.com's foray into the food sector comes as Beijing increasingly embraces online service platforms as a useful driver of employment and domestic consumption in the face of broader pressures weighing on growth.

But increased rivalry has also raised concerns of unfair practices, with Beijing's top market supervisor urging major food delivery providers including JD.com, Meituan and Ele.me to abide by e-commerce laws.

JD.com said in late July it had signed a 2.2-billion euro (2.5 billion dollars) deal with German electronics retail giant Ceconomy that would boost the Chinese group's presence in Europe.

Ceconomy is the parent company of two major retailers, MediaMarkt and Saturn, which have a network of more than 1,000 electronics stores, many of them in Germany but also in several other European countries.