JD.com Founder's New Mission: 100,000-yuan Yacht for Ordinary Household

Liu Qiangdong, founder and chairman of JD.com, has launched an independent yacht brand Sea Expandary to enter the global yacht industry, with plans for a full industrial chain covering research, manufacturing, sales, operation, leasing, brokerage and services, The Paper reported on Tuesday.

In an interview, Liu said he will invest 5 billion yuan (US$727 million) of his personal capital in Guangdong Province to build up the yacht business. He stressed he will not be involved in day-to-day management, as a CEO and a complete management team are in place.

"I will act at most as a product manager," Liu noted, adding that he will devote most of his energy to JD Group.

Liu pointed out China's yacht manufacturing sector is fragmented, small-scale and weak, with almost no domestic firm investing more than 10 million yuan. The yacht industry, however, is capital- and technology-intensive, requiring heavy investment to challenge top European and American players.

He aims to build yachts priced at 100,000 yuan to make yachts accessible to ordinary households, much like passenger cars.

Sea Expandary yesterday signed strategic cooperation agreements with governments of Shenzhen and Zhuhai. The brand plans to build a yacht manufacturing base in Zhuhai and set up its China headquarters in Shenzhen, while taking part in the construction and operation of several marinas and supporting facilities in the city.

It will also launch a research and innovation center, an operation service center and a bonded maintenance center in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area.

Sea Expandary will focus on new-energy intelligent yachts, seeking to help China overtake rivals in green and smart marine manufacturing and fill a gap in China's civilian shipbuilding industry.

Liu told Nanfang Metropolis Daily that he has secured orders for five large yachts at an average price of 60 million euros (US$70.7 million) per vessel, thanks to trust from overseas contacts after sharing his business vision.

China's yacht market is expanding rapidly. Data from the Ministry of Transport shows newly registered yachts account for 54.7 percent of the total fleet in the past three years, with growth expected to continue through the 15th Five-Year Plan period.

Yet China's yacht manufacturing lags far behind its mighty commercial shipbuilding sector. The country's yacht industry generated just 12.8 billion yuan in output and US$600 million in exports in 2024, holding less than 4 percent of the global market share, compared with leading producers such as Italy, the Netherlands and Germany.

Industry insiders said the launch of Sea Expandary could help fill the domestic gap in high-end yacht manufacturing, break the dominance of foreign brands via green and smart technologies, lower consumer barriers and push the yacht sector toward mass consumption and large-scale development.