Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com (JD) is scheduled to report fourth-quarter 2018 results on February 28, Thursday, after the closing bell. Wall Street expects the company to post a loss of 4 cents per share during the quarter, on revenue of $19.15 billion.
The management had projected an 18-23% jump in fourth-quarter revenue to RMB 130- RMB 135 billion, riding on the strong performance of both its products and services.
JD stock has plunged 47% in the trailing 52 weeks, primarily due to the worsening trade relations between the US and China, besides the weakening economy of its home market. However, since the start of this year, the stock is up 22.6%.
The company’s core e-commerce operations will be its driving force in the fourth quarter as well. JD has been shelling out cash on expanding its operations into the emerging markets and investors will be interested to know about the outcome. Investors will also be looking at management updates about JD’s partnership with Google (GOOGL).
Meanwhile, growth in JD’s Logistics unit, which handles product deliveries, has been hampered by the sluggishness of third-party partners. The company will need to resolve this crisis before the unit starts eating into the earnings from the core online-shopping business. JD will also need to develop new strategies to further lift its online direct sales, which made up almost 90% of total sales during the last reported quarter.
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The stock has a 12-month average price target of $26.24, suggesting a 3% upside from its last close.
In Q3
JD.com Inc. (JD) surpassed analysts’ expectations on earnings for the third quarter of 2018 but revenue came in shy of estimates. The stock was down 3.6% during pre-market hours following the announcement.
