JD.com or Jingdong Mall (Chinese: 京东商城; pinyin: Jīngdōng Shāngchéng), formerly 360Buy, is a Chinese electronic commerce company headquartered in Beijing. It is one of the largest B2C online retailers in China by transaction volume.[4] Its English website, for worldwide shipping, launched on October 18, 2012.
The company was founded by Liu Qiangdong (a.k.a. Richard Liu) in July 1998, and its B2C platform went online in 2004. It started as an online magneto-optical store, but soon diversified, selling electronics, mobile phones, computers, etc. Jingdong Mall changed the domain name to 360buy.com in June 2007, and to JD.com in 2013.
- June 1998 – The company was founded as Jingdong Century Trading Co., Ltd selling magneto-optical in Beijing, China.
- January 2004 – The company’s B2C site went online as jdlaser.com
- January 2006 – Shanghai subsidiary established
- January 2007 – Guangzhou subsidiary established
- June 2007 – began using the domain name 360buy.com, and the company name was changed to Jingdong Mall.
- December 2010 – 360buy.com started online bookstore. CDs, DVDs and ebooks were added in the following months.
- April 2011 – 360buy.com launched platform named “POP” for brand owners.
- October 2012 – en.360buy.com was launched for the international market
- March 2013 – the company’s domain name was changed to JD.com.
It has been public knowledge that Alibaba’s founder, Jack Ma Yun, and JD’s founder, Richard Liu Qiangdong, do not get along. Liu sometimes publicly criticises Alibaba and Ma’s business practices. Alibaba and its executives often hit back.
The two e-commerce firms compete fiercely in a fast-growing industry where Alibaba’s Taobao.com targets the same online consumers on the mainland who shop on JD.com which is previously known as Jingdong Mall.
Source: Wickipedia.org
