By Xie Fang
Suning.com (002024), a Shenzhen-listed online appliance retailer whose stocks are included in the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Emerging Markets Index, released its unaudited semi-annual financial statements on Tuesday, reporting a stunning 19-fold net profit growth in the first two quarters of this year.
The company generated a total of over RMB 110.78 billion in operating revenue during the reporting period, a year-on-year increase of 32.29 percent. Its net profit jumped by up to 1,957.38 percent from a year earlier to hit nearly RMB 6 billion by the end of June.
According to the statements, the company obtained most of its profit gains by selling the shares of the Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba, which it previously held. However, its net profit still rose by 35.85 percent without taking the share sale into account.
As a result of such an exceptional business performance, the company’s total assets rose by 14.03 percent from the beginning of the year to reach more than RMB 179.33 billion.
The company’s enhanced profitability is what’s behind its rapid revenue and profit growths, with its basic earnings per share (EPS) rising over 20-fold and its weighted average rate of return on equity also up by 7.12 percent on a yearly basis.
To boost its online sales, the company held several discount events during the reporting period, which led to a 64.34 percent increase in the number of its app users in June. By the end of June, around 357 million customers have registered with the company’s online platform.
The company also stepped up its efforts to strengthen its brick-and-mortar sales network by establishing more shopping plazas and physical stores. So far, it has built 15 shopping plazas and as many as 732 physical stores across the country.
What’s more, with a massive logistics network that covers 352 Chinese cities, the company’s revenue generated by its logistics services also grew by 118.49 percent during the first half of the year.
