China’s Dangdang.com Net Revenue Up 23% With Continued Net Losses

Chinese B2C e-commerce website Dangdang.com published its financial report for the first quarter ended March 31, 2013, stating that its total net operating revenue was CNY1.334 billion, a year-on-year increase of 23%; though it still reported net losses of CNY72.7 million.

During the first quarter of 2013, Dangdang.com’s total trade value was CNY1.86 billion, including CNY864 million from the sales of books and CNY996 million from commodities. Its commodity business exceeded the book business for two consecutive quarters.

At the same time, Dangdang.com’s overall gross margin reached 17.2%, which was the highest over the past eight quarters. As an important index for measuring profitability, gross margin is one of the focuses of e-commerce operators. The high gross margin may indicate that Dangdang.com is on the right path to reduce losses and eventually make a profit.

In addition, the report said Dangdang.com’s operating revenue of media products was CNY863.9 million, a year-on-year increase of 24%; while its revenue from daily commodities increased by 12% to CNY411.7 million, accounting for 31% of its total revenue.

Dangdang.com said business optimization and platform business development are the important measures to improve the performance of the company. The fast growth of the apparel sector help Dangdang.com realize 193% operating revenue increase in the platform business sector.