Liu, who resurfaced after years away from the spotlight, said the past few years were bad for the Chinese tech company.

JD.com (JD) founder Richard Liu has vowed to accelerate the company's international expansion and double down on new areas, such as food delivery and travel booking, after what he believes was an uneventful five-year period for the company.

The past half-decade was the darkest period for his company, Liu said during a rare news conference at JD's Beijing headquarters on Tuesday, according to a Bloomberg report.

He said the company lost its way, and its future should be about leveraging a battle-tested logistics network in areas like meal delivery, where it's making headway despite initial losses.

Liu has resurfaced in the spotlight after years of quiet. He stepped back in 2018 following a U.S. arrest on rape suspicion — charges were never filed — and later resigned as CEO in 2022 amid Beijing's tech crackdown.

Over the years, the company has lost ground to competitors. Since the end of May 2020, U.S.-listed shares of JD.com have lost half of their value, compared to a 42% fall in Alibaba and a 69% rise in PDD.

Earlier this year, JD entered China’s $80 billion-plus food delivery market with JD Takeaway/JD Daojia, offering high consumer discounts and benefits to its delivery staff.

The move forced incumbents Meituan and Alibaba's Ele.me to adopt similar concessions to keep their users.

Liu said JD would launch a hotel and flight bookings offering in China, pitting it against Meituan in another area, and plans to roll out its e-commerce platform in Europe in 2026.

Liu also reportedly portrayed JD as the anti-PDD, focusing on high-quality products and disdaining the model of cross-border shipping that underpinned the success of PDD's bargain app Temu.

JD's U.S. shares are down 3.2% year-to-date.

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