BRIEF: Dada’s margins improve as user base grows

Dada Nexus Ltd. (DADA.US), a logistics company owned by JD.com (JD.US; 9618.HK), on Wednesday reported its revenue fell 7.3% year-on-year to 2.43 billion yuan ($340 million) in the third quarter from 2.62 billion yuan a year earlier. On a non-GAAP basis, the company reported a net loss of 59.4 million yuan in the third quarter, compared with a net loss of 9.2 million yuan in the same period last year.

By business segment, the company’s Dada Now delivery service’s third-quarter revenue increased 38.6 % year-over-year to 1.49 billion yuan, compared with 1.08 billion yuan in the same period last year. It attributed the growth to an increase in the number of orders for same-city real-time delivery services provided to various chain merchants.

Revenue from its JD NOW delivery platform fell 39.6% to 930 million yuan in the third quarter from 1.54 billion yuan in the same period last year. The decrease was due to lower revenue from online advertising and marketing services, as well as lower fulfillment and other revenue as a result of the company’s delivery fee waiver program launched in February 2024.

The company said that JD NOW delivery maintained high growth in the number of users placing monthly orders and the number of orders placed in the third quarter, with year-on-year growth rates exceeding 100% in both cases. The penetration rate of JD NOW in JD.com’s user base also continued to grow year-over-year. Dada added that the peak daily online order volume for JD NOW hit a new record high during JD.com’s “Double 11” shopping festival this year that ran through Nov. 11.

The company’s non-GAAP net loss margin improved by 3.7 percentage points quarter-over-quarter in the third quarter on the company’s improving efficiencies, reflecting its improving profitability, according to CFO Mao Jun.

The company’s stock rose 3.8% to $1.63 in after-hours trade in New York on Wednesday.

By Lee Shih Ta

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