Walmart and JD.com have announced a strategic alliance across China through a combination of e-commerce and retail.
The agreement between the companies includes a wide range of business initiatives, covering both online and offline retail. For Walmart, the alliance greatly expands its opportunity in China e-commerce and provides its stores and Sam’s Clubs with potential traffic from JD.com’s base of online customers and same-day delivery network to serve its customers.
JD.com will leverage Yihaodian’s brand and business in eastern and southern China and in key product categories such as high-quality grocery and household goods, both of which complement its own geographical and product strengths. In addition, JD.com’s customers will gain access to a wide range of new and imported items from Walmart and Sam’s Club.
As part of the agreement, Walmart will receive 144,952,250 newly issued JD.com Class A ordinary shares, amounting to approximately 5% of total shares outstanding.
“We’re excited about teaming up with such a strong leader in JD.com, and the potential that this new relationship creates for customers in China, as well as for our businesses. We thank the Yihaodian associates for creating a strong brand and business that has helped lead to this opportunity with JD.com,” said Doug McMillon, President and CEO of Walmart.
“Walmart is synonymous with trusted-quality efficient retailing, and we believe that this tie up will increase both product selection and overall user experience. We look forward to further developing Yihaodian, which has tremendous strength in important regions of eastern and southern China. Yihaodian will continue offering the outstanding user experience its customers have come to expect, which we will further augment by leveraging our unparalleled logistics capabilities and breadth of product categories”, said Richard Liu, CEO of JD.com, before adding, “We are also delighted to welcome the Sam’s Club flagship store onto the JD.com platform.”
Source: Walmart
