JD.com Battles Rivals in Fierce Race for China's Instant Delivery Dominance

As of August 14, 2025, Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com is aggressively expanding its instant-delivery business, JD Takeaway, in an effort to diversify its revenue streams. However, the company is finding it challenging to break into the highly competitive industry dominated by long-established players.

JD.com has poured billions into its food-delivery unit, which it launched in February 2025. The service has managed to grow its user base, traffic, and revenue, with both quarterly active customer growth and shopping frequency up more than 40%. Yet, it is struggling to take significant market share from industry leader Meituan and Alibaba's Ele.me.

Data shows that daily active users in JD's delivery business have fallen steadily since peaking in mid-June 2025, slipping more than 13% week-on-week by July 27, 2025, compared to a 6% drop and a 1% gain in the previous two weeks. This signals a "significant loss of momentum for JD.com, and likely market share loss," according to M Science analyst Vinci Zhang.

The intense competition has also squeezed JD.com's profitability, with its adjusted operating margin shrinking to 0.3% in the June 2025 quarter from 4% a year earlier. Meituan and Alibaba's instant commerce businesses have also been rapidly expanding, with Meituan reaching a record 120 million daily orders across food and retail goods, and Alibaba's Taobao instant commerce business combined with Ele.me reaching 80 million daily orders early in July 2025.

The three companies have collectively pledged nearly 200 billion yuan ($27.87 billion) in recent months to subsidize instant delivery, sparking an "instant retail" price war that has drawn regulatory scrutiny. JD.com CEO Sandy Xu acknowledged the fierce competition, stating that the company is focused on improving its platform to attract more users, merchants, and riders.