• JD com founder and CEO Richard Liu at the NASDAQ Building in New York last year.

JD com founder and CEO Richard Liu at the NASDAQ Building in New York last year. (Photo : www.retailnews.asia)

JD.com, Inc, one of China's biggest e-commerce companies, and Kingdee International Software Group Co. Ltd., a Hong Kong-listed firm, have announced the forming of a strategic partnership agreement that will provide cloud services to China’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), according to a joint statement released on jd.com on May 18, Monday.

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The Global Times reported that JD.com, Inc (JD) has expressed intention to invest HK$1.3 billion ($171 million) in Kingdee.

Liu Qiangdong, CEO of JD, said in the announcement that the cloud service would enable JD to integrate its e-commerce and logistics system with Kingdee's Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions and migrate an integrated package to an enterprise cloud solution, to respond to the growing demand in enterprise solutions market.

The report said that JD plans to deliver services to the growing number of SMEs that requires an online sales company like Kingdee that offers more services.

"Kingdee has a large SME customer base in China and overseas, which is attractive to JD," Wang Xiaoxing, an analyst from Beijing-based market research firm Analysys International, was quoted as saying.

JD's global trade platform JD Worldwide was launched in April and allowed Chinese customers to order goods from hundreds of brands and sellers in overseas markets such as Australia, Germany and France, a statement on JD's website said.

On the other hand, Kingdee, a software company based in Shenzhen, has reached an agreement with U.S. e-commerce giant Amazon to strengthen their cooperation in ERP cloud service on April 23.

The cooperation between the two companies is expected to strengthen China's cloud computing system and help the two companies improve their services.