Credit: CFP

TMTPOST -- JD.com Inc. is turning up the heat in China's food delivery wars, and founder Liu Qiangdong is leading the charge.

In an uncharacteristically forceful declaration, Meituan founder and CEO Wang Xing said at the company's first-quarter earnings call that Meituan would "spare no effort to win the competition," marking his first direct comment on the intensifying delivery battle after more than two months of public silence.

The remark, while measured and respectful, stood in stark contrast to earlier inflammatory comments from Meituan executives, who dismissed rivals as destined for "the dustbin of history."

But the change in tone signals something deeper: JD.com's pressure is working.

JD Waimai, the e-commerce giant's nascent food delivery service, has doubled its daily order volume to over 20 million in just a few weeks—an eye-popping feat that industry insiders say not even JD itself fully anticipated. The second 10 million orders, unlike the first, didn't come from untapped markets but from Meituan's own turf, indicating a breach of its long-protected moat.

"It's no longer a test," JD.com CEO Sandy Xu (Xu Ran) told analysts during the company's earnings call. "We've built a full-stack strategy, and it's now delivering results." JD provided little direct financial detail about the delivery business in its earnings report, but Xu's extended comments underscore its growing importance to JD's ecosystem—and the seriousness with which it's being pursued.

This is not just about food. It's about the future of retail.

JD's ambition goes beyond immediate skirmishes in food delivery or even quick commerce. According to Xu, the market is large enough for multiple platforms, but is still plagued by unmet needs: safer food, higher-quality delivery, fairer commissions for merchants, and better protections for riders.

"These demands align precisely with JD's strengths," Xu said. "Delivery—including food—can create huge synergies with our supply chain, user base, and fulfillment capabilities."

In other words, food delivery is not a siloed experiment—it's a node in JD's larger vision of an all-frequency, omni-channel retail empire, bridging e-commerce with offline retail.

To that end, JD recently opened its first JD MALL in Beijing, a 70,000-square-meter complex offering over 200 global brands and 200,000 SKUs—JD's clearest signal yet that it is betting on a full-spectrum retail strategy from flash delivery to big-box showrooms.

Liu's high-profile return to frontline operations—despite strong management talent like former Meituan executive Guo Qing now leading the delivery push—underscores the strategic stakes. Industry watchers liken the move to what Paul Graham once called the "founder model": only founders, he argued, treat companies like their own children, can rewrite the rules, and are willing to restructure everything when needed.

"Liu isn't posturing," one person close to JD's leadership said. "He thrives in hand-to-hand combat. He's out there with the riders. This is personal."

The intensity of competition in China's consumer internet space—now revving up again after years of regulatory chill—has seen founders from Alibaba, Tencent, and even ByteDance quietly reassert control. In Liu's case, his presence ensures JD resources flow aggressively into food and local services.

While Meituan has framed JD's delivery push as a "strategic distraction" to ease pressure on JD's e-commerce core—a "Wei to rescue Zhao" move—analysts say this is clever spin.

In truth, it's Meituan's survival that is more at stake. Food delivery, grocery, and instant retail are Meituan's lifeblood. JD, with diversified revenue streams, has more room to maneuver.

"Meituan calls itself a 3.0 retail innovator battling JD's outdated 2.0 model," one analyst noted. "But instant retail is really just a vertical within the existing e-commerce system—it improves speed, but often at the expense of cost and breadth."

The fastest delivery in the world can't match JD's after-sales guarantees, depth of inventory, or price efficiency—at least not yet.

JD's challenge is precisely that it doesn't need to win on "fast" alone. And if it can replicate its logistics and service model at the high-frequency end of consumer behavior, it could redefine what integrated retail means in China.

Following Liu's return, JD's group-wide revenue growth accelerated from 13.4% in Q4 2024 to 15.8% in Q1 2025. Sources say the company is pushing each unit to contribute toward a group-wide 30% growth target—an ambitious goal that must be met through "real," not inflated, performance.

JD is sticking to an "adjacent expansion" playbook—building in areas where it already has supply chain advantages, such as health, logistics, and now local delivery.

This is not opportunism. It's evolution.

JD's next battle will likely be fought on deeper integration: bundling food delivery with other services, linking it to JD's logistics backbone, and leveraging its data capabilities to optimize dispatch, SKU selection, and cost.

Meanwhile, Meituan faces the uncomfortable truth that food delivery is no longer its unchallenged domain. The threat is no longer theoretical.

"JD is not playing to win just one category," said one former Meituan executive now advising competitors. "It's playing to rewrite the rules of retail. And this time, it's not backing down."

As Meituan prepares for a bruising second quarter, and JD prepares to press its advantage, one thing is clear: the food delivery war is just the beginning of a much larger clash over the future of China's retail landscape.