CEO of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com steps down after just one year as company swings to profit

Shares of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com rose nearly 5% in pre-market trade in the U.S. on Thursday after it swung to profit and announced a new chief executive.

The company, which is a rival to Alibaba in China, said net sales for the first quarter rose 1.4% year-on-year to 243 billion Chinese yuan ($35 billion), beating an analysts' average estimate of 239.42 billion yuan, according to Refinitiv data.

Net profit came in at 6.3 billion yuan versus a loss of 3 billion yuan in the same period last year.

JD has benefitted from Chinese consumers shopping online during the country's strict Covid-19 control measures since the pandemic begun in 2020. China scrapped its so-called "zero-Covid" policy last year.

JD also announced a management change on Thursday. The company said its current CEO Xu Lei will step down from the role in June "due to personal reasons." Xu has only been CEO for around a year after taking over from JD's founder Richard Liu.

Xu will serve as the first chairman of the advisory council of JD.com and "continue to participate in the high-quality development" of the company, JD.com said in a statement.

Sandy Ran Xu, the current chief financial officer of JD.com, has been appointed as the CEO and an executive director of the Beijing-headquartered firm. She has served as CFO of JD.com since June 2020 and joined the firm in July 2018. Prior to her role at the e-commerce firm, she was an audit partner and spent nearly 20 years at PricewaterhouseCoopers in China and the U.S.

Ian Su Shan, the current CFO of JD Logistics, will take over as CFO of JD.