Chinese smart retailer Suning.com has turned in its best performance since embarking on its O2O business model in 2009.
Its omni-channel sales of RMB243.2 billion (about US$38.4 billion) last year rose nearly 30 per cent year-on-year, while the net profit attributable to equity shareholders of the company was RMB4.21 billion – an increase of 497.66 per cent.
The retail subsidiary of Suning Holdings Group, Suning.com focuses on traffic management, merchandising and affiliate marketing, optimising customer experience and improving omni-channel capabilities.
During the reporting period, total online physical trading volume for the company was RMB126.6 billion (tax inclusive), up 57 per cent, while the number of monthly active Suning.com app users has grown by 106 per cent since the start of the year. In December, the number of orders generated by the app reached more than 89 per cent of the total online.
At the end of December 2017, Suning had 3867 physical stores with a total area of 5.09 million square metres.
Still improving
Through internet technology application, data-oriented management and strong quality control, the business performance of Suning stores continues to improve, says the company. Sales revenue grew 4.17 per cent in the firm’s Mainland China stores with the efficiency of direct-sale stores jumping 34.9 per cent.
By the end of this year, with a strategic partnership with 300 real-estate developers domestic and abroad such as Evergrande, Sunac and Wanda, Suning plans to add a further 5000 physical stores to its portfolio, all connected to its online presence and covering diversified consumption scenarios including Suning cloud stores, direct-sale stores, fresh-food supermarkets and convenience stores, Redbaby (maternal and child supplies stores), Suning Sports and Suning Cinemas. It says 15,000 internet-connected stores will open within three years for a total of 20,000 by 2020.
As well as the substantial growth of its retail subsidiary, the logistics and financial services arms of Suning also continued rapid growth. Suning Logistics revenue (excluding Tian Tian Express) grew 135.76 per cent last year. It now has a total area of 686 million square metres of warehousing, with 20,871 express outlets. Suning Financial Services (payment business, supply-chain finance) saw transactions increase by 130 per cent in size overall.
Founded in 1990, Suning has two public companies, in China and Japan respectively.
