Go fetch! JD.com enters the food delivery business (part 2)
What are the chances of success for JD.com’s food delivery business?
Image source: JD.com and Copilot.
Contents
Things that caught our attention
A few recent Substack notes by Freya:
On March 6, 2025, Tech Buzz China’s Rui Ma and EV investors tour expert Lei Xing joined Peilei Fan to explore the state of ICV/AV technologies in both the United States and China, as well as areas of competition and potential collaboration. Watch the video here.
Tech Buzz China’s Ed Sander was a guest on the Shanghaizhan podcast with Bryce Whitwam and Ali Zein Kazmi. They discussed recent insights from Tech Buzz China’s reports on TikTok Shop as well as the ‘secret sauce’ of Temu. Listen to the full podcast here.
Ed also talked with Valerie Ditchl and Ingrid Lommer of the Let’s Talk Marketplace podcast about our recent TikTok Shop reports. The podcast can be seen/listened to on Spotify, Apple Podcast or YouTube.
Introduction
Last week, we published the first part of a lengthy report about JD.com’s recently announced official venture into the food delivery market. While this isn’t the first time the e-commerce company has tried its hand at this local services sector, it seems to be a lot more serious than during its first attempt in 2022.
This new sense of urgency is due to Meituan’s rapid expansion into instant retail, which threatens not only JD’s own JD Daojia/Miao Song instant retail business but also, in the long run, its more traditional e-commerce business.
Last week, we examined JD’s history in food delivery, its exact motivations, and the details of its expansion strategy in depth. This week, in the second and last part of this report, we evaluate JD’s strengths and weaknesses in the food delivery market, the responses of the most prominent market leaders, Meituan and Ele.me, the results so far, and the outlook on the future of JD Takeaway.
As a continuation of the first part of this report, this article is only available to paid subscribers. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber yourself (if you have not yet done so) to support our work and become more informed about China tech.
Enjoy,
Ed Sander – Research Editor
