Liu Qiangdong's wealth has shrunk by more than 100 billion
"2024 Hurun Global Rich List", Liu Qiangdong ranks 427
Recently, Liu Qiangdong's popularity has been very high. Not long ago, Liu Qiangdong's AI digital person came to the live broadcast room to bring goods, and he looked like it, and won a turnover of 50 million in one night, which made Jingdong and its boss Liu Qiangdong have a wave of presence in the market.
In March this year, the Hurun Research Institute released the "2024 Hurun Global Rich List", which ranked the wealth of global entrepreneurs, and the deadline for wealth calculation is January 15, 2024. Liu Qiangdong is the founder of Jingdong Group, a well-known entrepreneur, in the new year, what is his worth and wealth, and how has the ranking changed?
In the "2024 Hurun Global Rich List", Liu Qiangdong ranked 427 with a wealth of 49.5 billion yuan, a drop of 291 places compared with last year, and his wealth shrank by nearly half.
Liu Qiangdong's 2024 Hurun Global Rich List Ranking Source: Hurun Report
In 2021, Liu Qiangdong ranked 54th on the "Hurun Global Rich List" with a wealth of 188 billion yuan, rising 71 places. But since then, Liu Qiangdong's wealth has begun to shrink gradually, and his ranking has been declining. In 2022, Liu Qiangdong's wealth will be 135 billion yuan, ranking 77th. In 2023, Liu Qiangdong will have a fortune of 95 billion, ranking 136th. In the latest list, Liu Qiangdong's ranking has dropped sharply, and compared with 2021, Liu Qiangdong's wealth has shrunk by 138.5 billion yuan, and his ranking has fallen by 373 places.
Liu Qiangdong's 2024 Hurun Global Rich List Ranking Source: Hurun Report
Liu Qiangdong's shrinking wealth is partly related to the performance of JD Group in the capital market. In 2023, JD.com's share price is not too optimistic in Hong Kong and U.S. stocks, showing a downward trend as a whole, and its market value has also shrunk significantly.
In addition, the market capitalization of JD.com's U.S. stock market has also widened a gap with Alibaba and Pinduoduo. At the close of the U.S. stock market on April 17, 2024, Alibaba's latest market capitalization was US$172.1 billion, Pinduoduo's latest market capitalization was US$150.7 billion, and JD.com's latest market capitalization was US$39.4 billion. According to calculations, Alibaba's market capitalization is 4.3 times that of JD.com, and Pinduoduo's market capitalization is 3.8 times that of JD.com.
Alibaba, Pinduoduo, Jingdong Group U.S. stocks Source: Baidu Stock Market
The market capitalization of a company reflects to some extent the degree of recognition and confidence of investors in the value of the company. This means that JD.com needs to make more efforts to gain market recognition.
It is worth mentioning that in November last year, Pinduoduo's U.S. stock once surpassed Alibaba to become the largest Chinese concept stock in the U.S. stock market by market capitalization. Alibaba founder Jack Ma also made a rare statement, "Congratulations to Pinduoduo for its decision-making, execution and efforts over the past few years." "At that time, Pinduoduo and Alibaba were chasing me in market value, but JD.com was rarely seen.
The Hurun Global Rich List is a relatively objective list, and although it cannot be said to be completely accurate, the changes in the data can also say something to some extent. Liu Qiangdong's wealth has shrunk, and JD.com's performance in the capital market tells us that JD.com is facing a test.
JD.com faces challenges
The e-commerce market is volatile and full of uncertainties and uncertainties. It is undeniable that the huge JD Group is also facing challenges.
Let's take a look at the financial report data first, as of now, the three giants of e-commerce - Alibaba, JD.com and Pinduoduo have handed over their 2023 report cards to the market.
Alibaba's performance was steady, with revenue of 927.5 billion yuan, up 7.28% year-on-year, and net profit attributable to the parent company of 99.987 billion yuan, up 205.3% year-on-year. JD.com's revenue in 2023 will be 1,084.7 billion, a year-on-year increase of 3.7%, and the net profit attributable to the company's ordinary shareholders will be 24.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 132.8%. Pinduoduo's revenue in 2023 will be 247.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 89.68%, and its net profit will be 60.03 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 90.33%.
On the whole, all three have achieved positive growth in revenue and net profit. JD.com has the highest annual revenue, and in terms of revenue, the fastest growing is Pinduoduo.
In horizontal comparison, we can find that JD.com's revenue growth has slowed down. JD.com's revenue growth rate in 2023 will be 3.7%, compared with 27.6% in 2021 and 9.9% in 2022. In other words, JD.com is under pressure to grow.
On the other hand, Pinduoduo's revenue and profit will both achieve rapid growth in 2023, exceeding market expectations, among which Pinduoduo's overseas business Temu has become a new growth point for Pinduoduo's revenue.
Pinduoduo's strong rise is indispensable for its layout in overseas markets. In fact, the overseas market has huge growth potential and has become the choice of major giants to tap new increments. Last year, the development of cross-border e-commerce became one of the hottest topics. Pinduoduo Temu, SHEIN, Douyin's TikTok Shop, and Alibaba's AliExpress are known as the "Four Tigers Going to Sea" in the industry, killing all sides overseas.
The battlefield of cross-border e-commerce has sounded the horn, but JD.com's layout in overseas markets has not made much splash.
As we all know, last year, Jingdong set off a new wave of reform, organizational structure, personnel and other aspects have been adjusted, and a series of activities have been carried out around the low-price strategy, including the launch of tens of billions of subsidies, 9.9 yuan free shipping channel, etc., during the double 11 also shouted the slogan "really cheap". However, at present, Jingdong's reform cannot be said to be a great success.
In December last year, a JD employee published a long article on the intranet, pointing out some of the problems that exist in his opinion JD.com: the promotion mechanism is complex; the rhythm and intensity of the platform's big promotion follow the friends and businessmen, and there is no advance planning; the platform pop merchants do not get enough support; the low-price mentality, everyone needs to implement it in place, and implement it to the end; except for 3C home appliances, JD has no other category advantages.
In this regard, Liu Qiangdong replied, "Every sentence points to the company's pain points, which are all real problems, and they must be changed." Otherwise we have no way out. Liu Qiangdong also mentioned that now the organization is huge and bloated to offset it, and it does take time to change.
Today's Jingdong Group has gone through 20 years, it is not easy for the elephant to turn around, and the reform of Jingdong needs to continue to go deeper and more solid in the future.
In addition, JD.com is facing fierce market competition, and the battle for market share has begun. Old rival Ali has stepped up the pace of change, and Ali has previously mentioned that reviving Taotian Group is currently one of the top priorities of Alibaba Group. Wu Yongming, CEO of Alibaba and CEO of Taotian Group, has said that in the coming year, it will increase investment in improving the core experience of e-commerce users to support Taotian Group to regain growth and consolidate its market leadership position.
This means that Alibaba will devote more resources and energy to the e-commerce business. Needless to say, Pinduoduo has long occupied the low-price minds of consumers in the process of its development, and overseas, Temu continues to soar.
As rising stars, Douyin e-commerce and Kuaishou e-commerce are also not to be underestimated. In 2023, the GMV of Douyin Mall will increase by 277% year-on-year, and the construction of Douyin e-commerce in content and shelf fields will continue to accelerate. This year, there is market news that Douyin e-commerce has set "price power" as the highest priority task in 2024. The low-price strategy has also been put on the agenda by Douyin e-commerce, that is to say, JD.com, which has picked up the low-price weapon, has one more opponent.
In addition, according to the financial report data released by Kuaishou, in 2023, Kuaishou's e-commerce transaction volume (GMV) will exceed one trillion yuan, reaching 1.18 trillion yuan, becoming the fifth platform with a GMV scale exceeding one trillion yuan after Taotian, JD.com, Pinduoduo, and Douyin. Kuaishou e-commerce has taken 6 years to break through the trillion scale, and the growth rate is amazing.
JD.com's next step
It is said that it is easy to start a business and difficult to keep a business, in today's e-commerce market, there are more monks and less meat, and JD has to work hard to win more users. Judging from JD's actions, JD is sparing no effort to upgrade the user experience and accelerate the construction of platform content.
In the e-commerce market, consumers clearly have a voice. If a platform wants to stand out in the fierce market competition, it must be seen by consumers and chosen by users. In addition to the industry's pursuit of low prices, improving user experience has become one of the ways to create a differentiated competitive advantage of the platform.
At the end of last year, JD.com announced its support for a "refund-only" service. This year, JD.com launched the "free door-to-door return" service, fully popularized 59 yuan free shipping, encouraged third-party merchants to open door-to-door delivery services, etc., JD.com comprehensively upgraded its services and continuously improved the competitiveness of the platform.
In terms of content construction, JD.com has increased its investment in live broadcast and short video. In terms of determination, JD Retail has positioned the content ecosystem as a must-win battle in 2024. In April this year, JD.com announced that it would invest 1 billion in cash and 1 billion in traffic to support the content ecology and attract more original creators and high-quality content institutions to settle in. Recently, Liu Qiangdong's AI digital human launch is a vivid example of JD.com's strengthening of content construction.
In general, the reform of Jingdong continues, under the leadership of Liu Qiangdong, what changes Jingdong will bring, let's wait and see.
Author | The old electric team