(Reuters) -Chinese e-commerce group JD.com Inc beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue on Tuesday, as more people shopped on its platform following lockdowns in mainland China to fight a fresh COVID-19 outbreak.
U.S.-listed shares of the Beijing-based company rose nearly 8% in premarket trading. E-commerce rival Alibaba Group also surged 7% and Pinduoduo climbed more than 8% before the market opened.
The resurgence of COVID-19 in the world’s second-largest economy and its strict lockdown regulations have revived online sales demand, helping e-commerce companies return to the growth seen during the early stages of the pandemic.
The company reported revenue of 239.66 billion yuan ($35.57 billion) for the quarter ended March 31, compared to analysts’ estimates of 236.66 billion yuan, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Excluding items, JD.com posted a profit of 2.53 yuan per American depository share (ADS), compared with analysts’ expectations of 1.62 yuan.
The net loss attributable to ordinary shareholders stood at 2.99 billion yuan, compared with a profit of 3.62 billion yuan a year earlier.
China’s retail sales fell 11.1% last month in their biggest contraction since March 2020 as the country scrambled to address its most severe COVID-19 outbreak in two years, which disrupted manufacturing, logistics and consumption.
“We consider JD’s long-term story to be intact, backed by its core competence and solid execution despite short-term headwinds from the recent COVID outbreak,” said a Jefferies research report published on May 4.
($1 = 6.7386 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Tiyashi Datta in Bengaluru, and Sophie Yu in Beijing; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Jan Harvey)
