Richard Liu Stepped Down as CEO of JD Group
- Chaileedo Press
- Apr 8, 2022
- 4 min read
Xu Lei, president of JD Group, as CEO of JD Group, will be responsible for daily operation and management, and report to Richard Liu, chairman of the board of directors of JD Group. Richard Liu will devote more energy to long-term strategic design, major strategic decision-making and deployment, young leading talent training and rural revitalization.
Less than a year later, China’s independent e-commerce company JD Group has gone through a major personnel adjustment.
On the morning of April 7th (Beijing time), JD Group issued an announcement that Xu Lei①, president of JD Group, will succeed Richard Liu② as the chief executive officer (CEO) of JD Group. At the same time, Xu Lei will join the board of directors of JD Group as an executive director. Richard Liu will continue to serve as the chairman of the board of directors and is committed to the company's long-term strategic design, the deployment of major strategic decisions, young leading talent training and rural revitalization.
According to the Chinese industry, the deployment of major strategic decisions means that Richard Liu still has decision-making power over JD Group's major strategies.
Not long ago, JD Group released its 2021 annual financial report with the net income of JD Group in 2021 reaching $149.3 billion as well as an increase of 27.6 per cent over the whole year of 2020. Its mainstream Chinese e-commerce platform JD.com increased its omnichannel Gross Merchandise Volume in 2021 by nearly 80% year-on-year.
In addition, JD Beauty’s omnichannel business has also gained rapid growth, with a service network covering more than 7,000 stores, spreading to 30 provincial-level administrative regions in China and more than 320 cities. Among them, there are not only beauty collection stores such as Sephora, Watsons, The Colorist, WOW COLOUR and etc., but also beauty brand offline stores such as Innisfree and Perfect Diary.
As more and more beauty brands join JD Beauty's omnichannel business, rapid improvement has been achieved in terms of the variety of products and brands, as well as the extensity of services. During the double eleven festivals, more than 5,000 beauty chain stores participated in the event, with turnover doubled year-on-year. The turnover of the “hourly purchase” business merchants such as Mannings and Gialen increased by more than 1.5 times year-on-year. Perfumes and makeup sets are very popular, and the turnover has increased by more than 10 times year-on-year.
During the JD Beauty 38 (Women's Day) shopping festival, “Her Power” was highlighted in the consumer market. Many beauty brands and single products hit a new high, and the turnover of the first 4 hours in the festival increased by 5 times year-on-year. High-end beauty and Chinese beauty brands have done a good performance with the turnover of more than 1000 brands such as Estée Lauder and Proya increasing by more than a hundred percent year-on-year.
High-end beauty brands come on top of the consumer's “hoarding list” all year round. L'Oréal Paris, Lancôme, SK-II, Estée Lauder and OlAY won the brand transaction list Top5. Popular products like Lancôme Tonique Confort, SK-II Facial Treatment Essence, Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair also became the top three crazes during the festival.
Proya, CHANDO and Pechoin are ranked in the top three of Chinese brands. One Leaf Rosa Fresh Hydration Facial Mask, KANS Seven Set, Pechoin Muscle Initial Vitality Gift Box became the top three crazes of Chinese beauty brand turnover. In addition, China’s new brands also made a great breakthrough in the festival of JD Beauty with the overall turnover rising by more than a hundred percent, of which the turnover of Brands such as MAKE ESSENSE, PMPM and ZHUBEN increased by 10 times year-on-year.
It is worth mentioning that from April 8th to April 17th (Beijing time) China’s local instant retail platform JD Daojia and JD will launch the “415 Shopping Promotion Festival” for the first time, which will also be the largest ever in the history of JD Daojia's anniversary celebration for the “415 festival”. There will be more than 150,000 physical stores across the country where more than 1,700 counties, regions and cities in China are included including Sephora and Zhongbai Warehousing joining in this event, which covers beauty, fashion and other categories.
① Xu Lei: Xu Lei has been with JD Group for more than 10 years, especially since he became CEO of JD Retail in July 2018, and he has led the retail business to achieve high-quality growth for three consecutive years. Recently, during his tenure as the President of JD Group, he was responsible for the day-to-day operations and synergistic development of the various business segments. Previously, he served as CEO of JD Retail, Chief Marketing Officer of JD Group, Head of Wireless Business Department, and Head of Marketing Department of JD Mall. He also led the design of the "JD 618 marketing campaign", which has now become one of the iconic events of China’s annual economy.
② Richard Liu: Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of JD Group. In 2004, Mr. Liu founded "Jingdong"(JD.com). Under his leadership, JD Group was listed on the NASDAQ in May 2014. JD Group is positioned as a "supply chain-based technology and service enterprise" and currently covers multiple business sectors such as retail, technology, logistics, health, insurance, production and development, and overseas businesses. Since the comprehensive transformation to technology in 2017, JD has invested nearly 12.576 billion US dollars in technology research and development.
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