JD Mall’s Restructuring Plans: What You Need to Know

JD.com (JD) has announced a restructuring plan that will see its main business, JD Mall, split into three groups, the South China Morning Post reported. One of the groups will be responsible for studying customer behaviors and market changes. Another group will be responsible for providing services that satisfy customer demands, likely building on the findings of the first group. The third group will handle everything from infrastructure building to risk management.

JD is betting on the restructuring plan to help it achieve quality growth and better position itself to serve customers in an ever-changing business environment. JD is in tight competition with Alibaba (BABA) for control of the ecommerce market in China—its domestic market. Overseas, JD is battling Amazon (AMZN), eBay (EBAY), and a host of other rivals for ecommerce revenue.

JD exited the third quarter of 2018 with 305.2 million active customers, down from 313.8 million in the second quarter and marking the first time that the company registered a decline in its active customer base. Alibaba and eBay closed the third quarter with 601 million and 177 million active customers, respectively, both increasing from the previous quarter. Amazon doesn’t disclose its customer metrics. It only said last year that its Prime membership program had attracted more than 100 million subscribers globally.

JD’s revenue rose 25% year-over-year to $15.3 billion in the third quarter. JD is collaborating with Google (GOOGL) to help accelerate its international expansion. Google owns a small stake in JD, following an investment of $550 million in the Chinese ecommerce giant in June.