JD.com Industrial IPO is imminent, and Liu Qiangdong's "Supply Chain Empire" adds another piece

Author | Wang Xiaojun

Editor | Huang Yu

Liu Qiangdong's capital puzzle is about to add the key piece of the industrial supply chain.

Recently, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange's official website showed that JD Industrial Co., Ltd. has officially passed the listing hearing. This marks the fourth attempt by JD Industrial to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since March 2023, and this approval means the company is expected to officially list for trading in December.

Currently, there has been no latest valuation released for JD Industrial. In March 2023, it completed a Series B financing round totaling $300 million, corresponding to a valuation of $6.7 billion (approximately RMB 47.6 billion).

If this listing is successful, JD Industrial will become the sixth company in the JD ecosystem to enter the capital market, following JD Group, JD Logistics, JD Health, Dada Group, and Deppon Logistics.

The path to listing for JD Industrial has not been smooth. The company previously submitted applications in March 2023, September 2024, and March 2025, all of which became invalid due to the expiration of the prospectus.

Before this approval, JD Industrial had conducted an IPO pre-roadshow in Hong Kong this month, with a fundraising amount expected to be around $500 million to $600 million. The joint sponsors for this IPO are Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Haitong International, and UBS, all of which are top international investment banks, showcasing a strong lineup.

From the equity structure, JD Group holds approximately 78.84% of JD Industrial's shares through its wholly-owned subsidiary, maintaining an absolute controlling position. JD Group founder Liu Qiangdong holds 3.68% of the shares through Max I&P Limited.

The development history of JD Industrial can be traced back to October 2018, when it became a primary category of JD.com, entering the core main business scope.

The year 2020 was a key year for JD Industrial's development, as it not only completed a Series A financing round led by GGV Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital and CPE Yuanfeng Capital, but also acquired Suzhou Gongpin Hui in August of the same year.

In March 2023, JD Industrial completed a Series B financing round totaling $300 million, corresponding to a valuation of $6.7 billion, which is three times that of 2020.

After years of development, JD Industrial has become China's largest MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Operations) procurement service provider. According to data from Zrac Consulting, based on the transaction volume in 2024, JD Industrial's market share reached 4.1%, nearly three times the size of the second place.

As it approaches the IPO, JD Industrial has also achieved steady growth and turned losses into profits financially.

According to the prospectus, the total revenue from the company's continuing operations grew from RMB 14.1 billion in 2022 to RMB 17.3 billion in 2023, and further increased to RMB 20.4 billion in 2024, with a compound annual growth rate of 20.1% over the two years.

More notably, JD Industrial has successfully turned losses into profits. In 2022, JD Industrial recorded a net loss of RMB 1.3 billion, but in 2023, it achieved profitability with a net profit of RMB 4.8 million, and its profitability further improved in 2024, with net profit rising to RMB 760 million.

From the latest half-year data, as of the six months ending June 30, 2025, JD Industrial's net profit reached RMB 450 million, significantly increasing from RMB 290 million in the same period of 2024 From the market perspective, JD Industrial's core competitiveness lies in its fully integrated digitalized industrial supply chain system.

The company has built a supply chain system that integrates "cargo network, warehouse network, and fulfillment network" to address issues such as the high dispersion of supply and demand in the industrial goods sector, redundant distribution layers, and a high proportion of non-standardized products. As of the end of June this year, JD Industrial offers approximately 81.1 million SKUs across 80 product categories, with its industrial goods supply network involving around 158,000 manufacturers, distributors, and agents over the past 12 months.

This year, JD Industrial launched the industry's first large model for industrial supply chains, JoyIndustrial, further strengthening its technological advantages. This large model is based on over 57.1 million industrial goods SKU data accumulated from JD's long-term service to the industrial sector, trained through practical experience in over 40 sub-industries, serving more than 10,000 industrial enterprises.

JD Industrial's IPO is closely linked to JD's overall strategy of transforming into an industrial internet. Liu Qiangdong's vision extends beyond the consumer internet; he hopes to leverage JD Industrial to make significant strides in B2B business, acting as a "connector for industry and manufacturing."

Despite the promising outlook, JD Industrial still faces numerous challenges ahead.

Inventory turnover pressure is increasingly evident. According to the prospectus, from 2022 to the first half of 2025, its inventory value increased from 607 million yuan to 1.25 billion yuan; inventory turnover days rose from 17.9 days to 23.1 days. The decline in inventory turnover efficiency exposes the inadequacy of its demand forecasting accuracy.

Secondly, the independence of the business still needs to be validated. Although JD Industrial emphasizes "independent operation," its deep binding with JD Group cannot be ignored.

In 2022, JD Industrial generated 351 million yuan in revenue from marketing services provided to JD Group, and by the first half of 2025, this revenue had reached 336 million yuan, with the growth of advertising and other services highly dependent on JD's ecosystem traffic. Although the proportion of revenue from JD Group's platform has decreased from 48.7% in 2021 to 39.7% in 2024, it remains considerable.

In the face of these challenges, JD Industrial is actively expanding its second growth curve. International business has become a strategic focus, with JD Industrial providing accompanying overseas services to over 100 Chinese enterprises, covering countries such as Mexico, Indonesia, Hungary, and Thailand.

At the same time, the company is also strengthening its layout in emerging fields such as robotics.

Recently, JD Industrial has reached cooperation agreements with Jingyao Technology and Nanjing Tianchuang Electronic Technology Co., Ltd., to conduct in-depth collaboration in areas such as online sales of robots and core components, and supply chain optimization. These initiatives are the concrete implementation of the slogan "Buy Robots, Shop at JD," further reinforcing its layout in the field of industrial automation.

Data shows that by the end of June 2025, JD Industrial had served over 11,000 key enterprise clients and more than 2.6 million small and medium-sized enterprise clients, including 60% of China's Fortune 500 companies.

The listing of JD Industrial will be another expansion of Liu Qiangdong's capital landscape and a recognition from the capital market of JD Industrial's supply chain after its comprehensive digital transformation following Liu Qiangdong's emphasis on supply chains Next, the market will vote with real money for JD.com Industrial