This article only represents the author's own views.
In January 2020, Richard Liu, founder of No. 2 Chinese e-commerce platform JD.com Inc. (JD.US; 9618.HK), said in an internal letter that international expansion, doing business in rural areas, technology and services were “must-win battles”. Now, he might need to rethink that, following a major retreat from one of his first major overseas forays.
Rumors began swirling as early as November that JD.com’s international unit would close its e-commerce businesses in Indonesia and Thailand in the first quarter of this year and had started laying off employees. On Jan. 30, the company’s Indonesia and Thai units separately announced on their websites that the former would stop taking orders from Feb.15 and cease operations on Mar. 31, while the latter would end operations as early as March 3.