Sandy Xu: And for the second part of the question, with the recovery of China, it’s [technical difficulty] growth, though the speed is slower than we anticipate at the beginning of the year. So –and also at the same time, driven by those series of effective policies supporting consumption, employment, project enterprises and the property sector. We anticipate that consumer spending will continue to steadily recover next year. and consumption will continue to become a major driver of economic growth. So from the perspective of categories, for some categories that JD has advantage will have a bigger market share, such as home appliances and electronics categories. Our supply chain strength and enhanced user mindshare have enabled us to maintain growth rates surpassing the inventory level in the first three quarters of the year.
And we continuously gain — on these current categories, we continue to gain market share. At the same time, our focused investment in our core capabilities this year give us the confidence in continuing to acquire market share next year. In the mobile phone and the 3C and electronics categories, we leveraged our supply chain advantages to continuously optimize cost efficiency and providing users with a diverse range of products and competitive prices and better services. So we also lead the trend of these categories — industries by strengthening our offerings of new and trendy products. And in the home appliances category, which is the category heavily relied on services, so we will further enhance our retail and service capabilities, both online and offline.
So while we are promoting higher end and emerging products, we are also enhancing users mindshare of high cost effectiveness of this category. Additionally, we are also making breakthroughs in our service capabilities in the home appliances category, such as trading in and one stop [ph] assembly, delivery and installation services, all aiming to further elevate the users experience and stimulate consumer demand. So for our supermarket category, after our proactive efforts this year and the initiatives — we have a series of initiatives, including the category planning, warehouse network transformation and refined operations, et cetera, and all these initiatives has been making steady progress. And this category has — we’ve seen a better momentum compared to the first half of the year.
And we believe for the supermarket category and will return to a healthier growth trajectory next year. So this will also reaffirm our belief that the supermarket category will remain to be JD’s most important growth driver in the long-term. And on this category, I would also want to remind you that it has benefited from last year’s pandemic period, which gives it a very high base a year ahead. So for 2024, we expect the impact of our proactive business optimization and adjustments will become less. So with the gradual recovery of the economy and the consumption and also the release of all these effects of JD’s algorithms and all the other measures based on our supply chain, we continue to play out as the low priced mindshare and also our platform ecosystem strategy will also gradually take root.
We anticipate achieving a higher — high-quality business growth next year. So throughout the strategic implementation process, we will strike a balance between growth and profitability. In the long-term, our profit improvement will come from the enhancement of our supply chain efficiency and the gradual improvement of the platform ecosystem. So our long-term goal of steadily increasing profit margins remain unchanged. Thank you.
Sean Zhang: Thank you. We are ready for the next analyst.
Operator: The next question comes from Charlene Liu with HSBC. Please go ahead.
Charlene Liu: Thank you. The first question is about competition. So competition intensified in 2023. Can you please kindly shed light on how you expect the competitive landscape to change in 2024? And how this would shape JD’s strategy going forward? Will GMV and market share be the continued focus over profitability. Second part to my question is, given most structural adjustments are expected to complete by end 2023, on a [indiscernible] next year, how much growth can we expect for the overall company, retail and most specifically for FMCG in 2024? And what could drive the results to potentially surprise on the up or down side and why? Thank you.
Sandy Xu: So thanks, Charlene. I will answer your first question. So currently, China’s eCommerce market features various platforms and business models. For each platform, it has a distinct characteristics. Though I might repeat myself many times. So here, I still want to share that for JD.com we constantly adhere to be supply chain-based and consumer-centric business model. Building core capabilities around supply chain and user experience, we collaborate with our partners to create a supply of high-quality and affordable [ph] goods to precisely match suitable users and provide ultimate shopping experience and earn user trust. So this business model has created value and [indiscernible] outcomes for consumers, business partners and the society at large.
It is designed to be the most resilient and sustainable business model capable of navigating different economic cycles. So in terms of the competition of the retail markets, the competition in this industry has always been here. Actually, there’s another saying about it’s like, more fear or less fear is always the competition here. So for retailers, we’ve observed that for this industry, many players this year has been focused on enhancing user experience and also refining operational and sustainable development strategies. So yes, so — always, there’s competition. And this year, you might feel this is intensified. So meet these competitions, you can see that these platforms, their profit margins have not been significantly impacted. We believe this is mainly attributed to the way for each platform to implement their business strategy and business models.
