Central Group has joined with JD.com, China's largest retailer, and leading Chinese fintech company JD Finance in announcing an aggregate investment of up to US$500 million to establish two joint ventures in Thailand covering e-commerce and fintech services.
Half of the investment will come from Central Group, with the remainder coming from JD.com, JD Finance and Provident Capital, which is also JD.com’s strategic partner for its Indonesian e-commerce business, according to a statement released by Central Group on Friday.
The company said Central Group will leverage its retail resources, including its physical store network, which will serve as key omni-channel and payment locations, its brand and merchant relationships, as well as its retail behaviour insights from the loyalty programme, “The 1 Card”.
It will open multiple flagship stores of its omni-channel businesses on the new joint e-commerce platform.
On the other side, JD.com will provide its expertise in technology, e-commerce and logistics to the e-commerce joint venture. The new fintech services joint venture will benefit from JD Finance’s knowledge in the financial technology sector, the statement said.
“JD’s proven track record of successfully building out national online retail businesses made it the obvious choice for our e-commerce partner,” said Tos Chirathivat, chief executive officer of Central Group.
“Thailand’s large population and developed infrastructure, including strong national logistics networks, give it tremendous potential for both e-commerce and fintech services,” said Richard Liu, JD.com’s chairman and CEO.
He added that cooperation with Central Group will provide JD.com competitive advantage when the company expands further into Southeast Asia.