China’s largest ecommerce company is launching a European version of the retail business that drove its growth as it seeks to take on Amazon and reduce reliance on an increasingly tough domestic market.
JD.com, the $40bn company founded by tech billionaire Richard Liu, on Monday started selling more than 100,000 products from high-end brands such as Apple and Samsung to groceries in six European countries. The service, which operates under the Joybuy brand, promises to deliver products in a matter of hours.
The expansion, JD.com’s largest ever overseas, marks an escalation of its ambitions to compete with Amazon, which has established strong positions in Europe’s online shopping markets. It previously tried to establish itself in Europe by setting up a smaller business called Ochama in 2022, but that failed to make headway.