Daily Tech Snippet: Wednesday March 4

• JD Q4 earnings: net revenue $5.6B, +73% Y/Y; total GMV $13.8B; Annual actives 96.6M, up from 47.4M; shares down 2.2%: JD, China’s second-biggest ecommerce company after Alibaba, today announced its fourth quarter 2014 earnings report. Here’s a quick breakdown of the highlights: JD, which mainly sells its own inventory directly to customers, sold RMB 85.8 billion (US$13.8 billion) worth of stuff, more than double what it sold during the same quarter last year. Alibaba’s Tmall and Taobao third-party marketplaces hit US$47 billion and US$79.3 billion, respectively, during the same quarter. Net revenue increased 73 percent year-on-year to RMB 34.7 billion (US$5.6 billion). Annual active accounts more than doubled throughout last year, from 47.4 million to 96.6 million. JD fulfilled 217.8 million orders, up from 111.7 million from a year ago. JD’s best-selling product category up to this point has always been electronics and appliances, but in 2014 "general merchandise" rose 173 percent year-on-year to take the number one spot. While most of JD’s revenues came from direct sales, the 60,000 additional merchants on its site make up a large portion of goods sold as well. Direct sales gross merchandise value totaled RMB 48.4 billion (US$7.7 billion), while third-party merchants reached RMB 37.4 billion (US$6.0 billion). Tencent bought a 15 percent stake in JD in March last year, which resulted in new shopping channels on the country’s two biggest messaging apps. JD’s sales volume from WeChat and QQ more than doubled since the third quarter. The report didn’t specify actual sales data for those platforms.

• Alibaba stock at post-IPO low on China growth, Taiwan regulatory issues, JD's better than expected results: Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. shares fell to their lowest level since debuting after rival online retailer JD.com Inc. reported better-than-projected earnings, fueling concern that Alibaba’s sales growth may be decelerating. The shares of Hangzhou, China-based Alibaba declined 2.9 percent to $81.58 at the close in New York. Earlier, the stock fell to $80.03, the lowest price since the day after the company’s September initial public offering. JD.com shares fell 2.2 percent to $27.53. Both stocks are listed in the U.S. Alibaba, which missed revenue estimates in the latest quarter, is contending with a decelerating Chinese economy and scathing criticism from the government for alleged lax oversight of its websites. The company is also facing competition from JD.com and is working to keep operating in Taiwan after being told to leave after alleged investment violations. “There may be some money shifting from Alibaba to JD,” said Ella Ji, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York. JD.com reported revenue of 34.7 billion yuan ($5.6 billion) in the fourth quarter, topping analysts’ average projection for 32.9 billion yuan, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Beijing-based company also issued a forecast for first-quarter sales that exceeded predictions. The challenges in Taiwan and a Wall Street Journal report about Alibaba merchants paying people to pretend to be customers, called “brushing,” to pad sales figures have created some short-term negative publicity, Ji said.

• Alibaba to launch data center in the US, aimed at US operations of Chinese companies: Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is launching a cloud computing hub in Silicon Valley on Wednesday, the e-commerce giant's first outside of China, underscoring its global ambitions in the face of stiff and entrenched competition. The new California data center marks the Chinese company's latest measured expansion onto American soil, and into a hotly contested U.S. market now dominated by Amazon.com Inc , Microsoft Corp and Google Inc. Alibaba's Aliyun cloud division intends the new data center to cater initially to Chinese companies with operations in the United States, including retail, Internet and gaming firms. It will later target U.S. businesses seeking a presence in both countries, Ethan Yu, a vice president at Alibaba who runs the international cloud business, told Reuters. Aliyun, which has been likened to a budding version of Amazon Web Services, began as part of the company's in-house technical infrastructure but has since expanded to lease processing and storage space for small and medium Internet businesses in China. While Alibaba dominates e-commerce in China, Aliyun, also known as Alibaba Cloud Computing, holds about a 23 percent market share in its home market. It faces both Chinese and foreign competitors, from carriers like China Telecom to Microsoft and Amazon. Its existing data centers span the Chinese cities of Hangzhou, Qingdao, Beijing, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Alibaba has big plans for Aliyun, which now accounts for about 1 percent of its revenue but supports its core e-commerce operation and will also play a pivotal role in the long run. Alibaba sees cloud computing as key to its plans to aggregate and analyze the vast quantities of data it collects, including on consumer behavior. Cloud computing and infrastructure was the company's fastest-growing business segment in the December quarter, increasing sales 85 percent to $58 million.

• Pizza Hut, Visa and Accenture prototype beacon-based pizza-ordering at Mobile World Congress: The firms are teaming up to test a system that lets you order and pay for your pie from your car, the companies announced Monday.Visa is demonstrating a proof-of-concept car at the ongoing Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Here's how it works: Visa's checkout payment system is integrated into the dashboard of the car. The driver uses voice control technology to place an order by accessing Pizza Hut's menu. Visa and Pizza Hut then validate your payment card information, and the pizza gets cooking. As you drive up to the nearest outlet, the restaurant is alerted to your arrival using Bluetooth-enabled "beacon technology." That's when your car acts as your payment card, sends your details to Pizza Hut's point-of-sale system, and the transaction is completed. Finally, your pizza is delivered to your car. When it comes to security, the technology isn't any different from swiping your card at a terminal, according to McCarthy. Drivers would still have to opt in to the car manufacturer and network provider's privacy terms and conditions, he said. This isn't the first experiment at combining retail with connected cars. Automakers debuted a slew of new concepts at this year's International Consumer Electronics Show, as my colleague Hayley Tsukayama reported. For example, General Motors debuted a service that supplies drivers with coupons from sites like RetailMeNot for shopping discounts or lets them book last-minute hotel reservations using data from Priceline.com. GM conducted a pilot program for subscribers through OnStar, the carmaker's onboard service provider.

• Facebook working on competitor to Twitter's MoPub: Facebook Inc. is working on a competitor to Twitter Inc.’s mobile-advertising distributor MoPub, according to people with knowledge of the matter, a bid to win more business in a growing market. The product is among several advertising moves that may be announced at the company’s F8 developer conference this month, though Facebook hasn’t yet decided whether it will release it then, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. Facebook has been building out the infrastructure that would support such a product. At its developer conference last year, Facebook released its Audience Network, giving advertisers a way to run their Facebook ads on third-party mobile applications. Its Atlas product also tracks people anonymously to give advertisers feedback on their ads, telling marketers if a person has seen the spots and on what device. MoPub, which Twitter acquired in 2013, gives advertisers a single place to serve their promotions to mobile apps and get feedback on their performance. Advertisers can bid in real time on prime locations for their ads on more than 1 billion devices.