JD.com returns to profit in Q2 despite rare dip in revenues. The company attributed the decline in top-line revenues primarily to a high base effect from the previous year Quick Poll Where do you mainly work? One click - no sign-up All data is anonymised. Polling helps Retail Sector better understand the Retail Sector audience and tailor its editorial. Latest Podcast Episode On this episode of Talking Shop, Retail Sector is joined by Tony Lorman, Regional President for EMEIA Pacific at Edgewell Personal Care. Overseeing operations across more than 50 diverse markets - spanning Europe, the Middle East, India, Africa, and the Pacific - Tony joins Retail Sector to look beyond glossy marketing campaigns and explore the operational engine driving successful FMCG brands. Joybuy owner JD.com has reported an operating profit of ¥4.5bn (£495m) for the second quarter of 2026, recovering from an operating loss of ¥0.9bn (£99m) in the same period last year. It comes as net revenues at the Chinese e-commerce group fell by 2.9% year-on-year for the quarter ended 30 June, marking the first decline since 2014. The company attributed the decline in top-line revenues primarily to a high base effect from the previous year. Despite the drop in overall revenue, net income attributable to ordinary shareholders rose to ¥7.1bn (£779m), up from ¥6.2bn (£680m) in 2025. The profitability improvement was supported by a 24.8% reduction in marketing expenses, which dropped from ¥27bn (£3bn) to ¥20.3bn (£2.2bn). The group's core retail division, JD Retail, generated ¥13.5bn (£1.5bn) in operating income, compared with ¥13.9bn (£1.5bn) in the second quarter of 2025. The division's operating margin reached 4.6%, up slightly from 4.5% a year earlier. Research and development expenditure rose by 37.7% to ¥7.3bn (£801m) during the period, up from ¥5.3bn (£581m) in 2025, following investment in technology and AI. Sandy Xu, chief executive of JD.com, said: "Our second quarter results reflect our resilient and high-quality operations. Despite near-term revenue headwinds, we achieved strong bottom-line growth, marking a clear inflection in our profit trajectory." Ian Su Shan, chief financial officer of JD.com, added: "We delivered solid profitability in the second quarter despite moderating top-line momentum. JD Retail's operating margin hit a record high for peak promotional seasons." Published: 20h ago

Unitree IPO puts a price on China's humanoid robot bet. August 14, 2026 The Hangzhou firm's record Shanghai listing has drawn frenzied retail demand, and a queue of rivals is forming behind it International Finance Business Desk Chinese robot maker Unitree has priced its Shanghai initial public offering (IPO) at 150.80 yuan a share, seeking about 6.1 billion yuan, or USD 904 million, in a deal that will make it the first humanoid robot manufacturer listed on the mainland. The Hangzhou-based company is offering roughly 40.45 million shares, or 10% of its enlarged share capital, on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's STAR Market. At that price the company is worth around 60.99 billion yuan, close to USD 9 billion. The reception has been extraordinary even by the standards of China's technology listings. The offering was more than 8,000 times oversubscribed by retail investors, with the company disclosing odds of roughly 0.018% of receiving shares after a partial reallocation away from the institutional tranche. A single lot of 500 shares requires a payment of 75,400 yuan, which has not deterred buyers hoping for a first-day pop. The regulatory path was just as quick. The application was accepted on March 20 and cleared the listing committee on June 1, a span of 73 days and a record for the board. What investors are actually paying for The valuation is the story. The offer price implies a diluted price to earnings ratio of 219.23 for 2025 and a price to sales ratio of 35.89, both far above comparable general equipment manufacturers, against a reference industry multiple of 38.56 times. The company itself warned investors about the risk of a share price decline given the premium. The final price came in about 45% above a market consensus of around 104 yuan after bookbuilding with institutions. Underneath that multiple is a business growing at a rate few hardware firms manage. Revenue rose to 1.70 billion yuan in 2025 from 392.77 million yuan in 2024 and 159.13 million yuan in 2023, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) above 220%. Reported net profit was 278.21 million yuan, while net profit attributable to the parent after excluding one-off items, chiefly share-based payment charges, stood at 590.75 million yuan. The headline 219 times multiple is calculated on the lower of those two figures. Between 2023 and 2025 the company sold 33,294 quadruped robots and 5,632 humanoids, and gross margin on the core business climbed to 60.13%. The strategic investor list explains part of the enthusiasm. Institutions taking 20% of the issuance include DeepSeek, Tencent's Qishan Investment, PetroChina's Kunlun Capital, China Southern Power Grid's industrial finance arm and Tianyi Capital, alongside three National Social Security Fund portfolios. DeepSeek alone was allocated 933,390 shares with a 36-month lock-up, a pairing meant to bridge large language models and robot hardware. This is state-adjacent capital and platform capital arriving together, which is how Beijing tends to signal that a sector matters. Why everyone is rushing the exit door at once Unitree is not an outlier. It is the first mover in a queue. AgiBot, valued above 20 billion yuan after backing from Tencent, JD.com and SAIC Motor, began its Hong Kong listing process in July, the first among a wave of 30 to 50 Chinese embodied intelligence startups to disclose listing plans. It has also acquired a controlling stake in Shanghai-listed Swancor Advanced Materials, securing a mainland platform. IPO applications from Leju Robotics and DEEP Robotics have been accepted in Shenzhen and Shanghai respectively. UBTech, which listed in Hong Kong in December 2023 as the first humanoid robot stock anywhere, saw its shares surge 150% in 2025 against a 32% rise in the Hang Seng Index. Three forces are pushing companies towards public markets simultaneously. The first is capital intensity. Building humanoids requires actuators, reducers, sensors and factories, the training data problem is unsolved, and the burn rate is high while revenue is thin. The second is the policy window. The 15th Five-Year Plan covering 2026 to 2030 elevates robotics and embodied intelligence from a niche subsidy target into the connective tissue of China's economic modernisation strategy, with component localisation targets written into the top-level document rather than into subordinate ministry plans. A 1 trillion yuan state venture fund for artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and emerging technologies sits behind it. Listing while that support is explicit is simply cheaper than listing later. The third force is the valuation cycle itself. Sector financing in China reached 73.5 billion yuan in 2025, and the first two months of 2026 alone exceeded 20 billion yuan. Private rounds at those levels create pressure for public exits before enthusiasm cools. The industrial base beneath the hype The humanoid narrative sits on top of an automation build-out that is already the largest in history. China accounted for 54% of all industrial robots installed worldwide in 2024, or 295,000 of 542,000 units, and its installed base of about two million machines is roughly 4.5 times that of Japan in second place. Global operational stock stood at 4.66 million. More telling is who supplies them. The share of local suppliers in Chinese domestic installations rose from 30% in 2020 to 57% in 2024, and Chinese firms now hold 85% of the domestic metal and machinery segment. For the first time, Chinese robot makers sold more units at home than foreign competitors. China also became a net exporter of industrial robots for the first time in 2025, and first-half 2026 exports reached 6.29 billion yuan, up 18.6% year on year, shipped to 141 countries and regions. That is the import substitution story Made in China 2025 promised, delivered a decade later in a sector Western suppliers once dominated. One caveat is worth stating plainly. On robot density, China is not yet the leader. Using updated labour market data from its own statistics bureau, the International Federation of Robotics puts China at 166 robots per 10,000 manufacturing employees, sixth in Asia and 22nd worldwide, against 307 in the United States. Western Europe reached a record 267 and North America 204. China's advantage is absolute scale, not saturation, which is precisely why the runway is long. China against the West On volume, the humanoid contest is already lopsided. Roughly 16,000 humanoid robots were installed worldwide in 2025, with China accounting for more than 80%, according to Counterpoint Research, which put AgiBot on 30.4% of global installations and Unitree on 26.4%. Omdia ranks AgiBot first on 5,168 units and a 39% share, a reading Unitree disputes with its own claim of more than 5,500 humanoids shipped. American rivals including Tesla and Figure each shipped a few hundred units at most. On money, the West leads by a distance. Figure is valued at about USD 39 billion after a Series C exceeding USD 1 billion in September 2025, roughly four times Unitree's listed value, with 1X at around USD 10 billion and Apptronik at about USD 5.5 billion. Tesla remains the wild card, with Optimus V3 expected to enter mass production in the second half of 2026 on a converted Fremont line. Unitree's own prospectus names Optimus and new entrants from Chinese carmakers as material competitive risks. The historical pattern from solar panels, drones and electric vehicles is that scale wins once the underlying technology commoditises, which is the bet embedded in Unitree's multiple. Automation as industrial policy For an economy facing a shrinking working-age population and rising wages, robots are a labour supply story as much as a technology story. Automation is how China intends to keep its manufacturing base competitive while the demographic base erodes, and how it plans to cut dependence on imported precision components. The Robot Plus initiative and the AI Plus Manufacturing roadmap aim to double manufacturing robot density by 2030, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has set up a standardisation committee for humanoid robots, and China is now leading formulation of international standards for elder-care robots, echoing its earlier standards campaigns in 5G and high-speed rail. The risks arrived before the shares did. Overseas sales generated 731.66 million yuan in 2025, or 43.65% of main business revenue, and on July 28 the United States Federal Communications Commission added foreign-made humanoid and quadruped robots to its Covered List, blocking equipment authorisation for models not already cleared. Unitree certified its current lineup weeks earlier, so those grants stand, but the North American path for new models is closed for now. The Pentagon has separately listed the company as having alleged military links, which Beijing rejects. Growth is also cooling. First-half 2026 revenue guidance of 1.05 billion to 1.13 billion yuan implies growth of 36% to 45%, against 333% a year earlier, and adjusted net profit is guided to fall by between 6% and 22%. A 219 times earnings multiple leaves no room for that trend to continue. Investors chasing lottery odds of 0.018% may find that out.

JD.com, Inc. (JD) stock: Q2 revenue drops as net income and cash flow rise. JD.com posts lower Q2 revenue as profits, margins and free cash flow strengthen By Yasmin Werner August 13, 2026 4 Mins Read Tldr. * JD.com Q2 revenue falls 2.9% while net income rises to RMB7.1 billion in 2026 * JD.com free cash flow climbs to RMB31.8 billion despite weaker quarterly revenue * JD Retail margin improves to 4.6% as core operations remain profitable in Q2 * JD Logistics revenue jumps 24.3% while the company expands automation efforts * JD.com repurchases $1 billion in shares as profits and cash generation strengthen JD.com, Inc. (JD) stock fell 1.90% pre-market to $31.01 after the company released second-quarter 2026 results. Revenue declined from last year, while operating income, net income, and free cash flow improved. The shares had already closed 0.97% lower at $31.61 before Thursday's pre-market decline. JD.com Q2 revenue falls while profitability improves. JD.com reported second-quarter net revenue of RMB346.4 billion, representing a 2.9% decline from the previous year. The company attributed the decline mainly to a strong comparison period during the second quarter of 2025. However, service revenue increased 6.8%, helping offset weaker product sales during the quarter. Net product revenue fell 5.4% year over year to RMB267.1 billion during the reported period. Electronics and home appliance revenue dropped 11.8%, while general merchandise revenue increased 5.6%. Meanwhile, marketplace and marketing revenue rose 8.3%, and logistics service revenue increased 5.9%. JD.com generated operating income of RMB4.5 billion after reporting an RMB0.9 billion operating loss last year. Consequently, the operating margin improved to 1.3% from negative 0.2% during the comparable quarter. Non-GAAP operating income also increased sharply to RMB5.5 billion from RMB0.9 billion. JD.com net income and cash flow strengthen. Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders reached RMB7.1 billion, compared with RMB6.2 billion one year earlier. The corresponding net margin increased to 2.1% from 1.7% during the second quarter of 2025. Non-GAAP net income also increased to RMB8.9 billion from RMB7.4 billion. Diluted earnings per ADS reached RMB5.01, compared with RMB4.15 during the same quarter last year. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per ADS increased to RMB6.29 from RMB4.97 during the comparable period. Therefore, earnings improved even as JD.com faced weaker consolidated revenue during the quarter. JD.com also reported stronger cash generation during the second quarter despite higher capital spending. Free cash flow increased to RMB31.8 billion from RMB22.0 billion during the previous year's quarter. Operating cash flow reached RMB37.7 billion, while capital expenditures totaled approximately RMB5.5 billion. JD Retail margins and logistics support results. JD Retail generated RMB295.4 billion in quarterly revenue, marking a 4.7% decline from last year's period. However, the segment produced RMB13.5 billion in operating income and maintained strong profitability. Its operating margin increased slightly to 4.6% from 4.5% despite lower revenue. JD Logistics delivered stronger growth and generated RMB64.1 billion in second-quarter revenue. That figure represented a 24.3% increase compared with the second quarter of 2025. The logistics segment also recorded operating income of RMB2.3 billion during the quarter. JD.com continued expanding logistics automation, artificial intelligence services, healthcare operations, and overseas retail initiatives. The company also strengthened partnerships with brands including Chanel and Costco during 2026. These projects provide additional growth channels as JD.com manages slower revenue across its core retail operations. JD.com continues share repurchases and Technology spending. JD.com repurchased approximately 69.9 million Class A ordinary shares during the first six months of 2026. Those purchases represented about 2.5% of ordinary shares outstanding at the end of 2025. The company spent approximately $1.0 billion under its existing $5.0 billion share repurchase program. Research and development expenses increased 37.7% year over year to RMB7.3 billion. JD.com continued investing in artificial intelligence, automated logistics, healthcare technology, and industrial procurement tools. Marketing expenses declined 24.8% to RMB20.3 billion as the company reduced promotional spending. JD.com ended June with RMB235.1 billion in cash, restricted cash, and short-term investments. The balance increased from RMB225.4 billion recorded at the end of December 2025. Stronger profits and cash flow contrasted with softer revenue growth and the latest weakness in JD stock. Stop guessing and start investing with confidence. KnockoutStocks gives you the AI insights, market intelligence, and stock research you need to spot opportunities, cut through the noise, and make smarter investment decisions - all in one powerful platform. Simply use coupon code SPECIAL50 at checkout to claim your exclusive discount. Limited Time Offer Get 3 free stock ebooks. Discover top-performing stocks in AI, Crypto, and Technology with expert analysis. * Top 10 AI Stocks - Leading AI companies * Top 10 Crypto Stocks - Blockchain leaders * Top 10 Tech Stocks - Tech giants