Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to JD Logistics' Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Please note that this English simultaneous translation line will be in listen-only mode for the duration of the call, including the question-and-answer session. If you wish to listen to the management's original statement or ask the question during the question-and-answer session, you will need to be dialed into the Chinese central line and turn the call over to Ms. Sean Zhang , Head of Investor Relations Team at JD Logistics. Let's go ahead.
Thank you. Operator, dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Results Conference Call. Joining us today are our Executive Director and CEO, Mr. Hu Wei, and CFO, Mr. Wu Hao.
Before we start, we'd like to remind you that today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results and outcomes may differ materially from those mentioned in today's announcement and this discussion. The company does not undertake any obligation to update its forward-looking information except as required by law. During today's call, management will also discuss certain non-IFRS financial measures for comparison purposes only. For definition of non-IFRS financial measures and the consideration of IFRS and non-IFRS financial results, please refer to the annual results announcement for the year ending December 31st, 2024, issued earlier today. For today's call, management will read the prepared remarks in Chinese, and we're only accepting questions in Chinese during the question-and-answer session. A third-party interpreter will provide simultaneous interpretation in English on that separate line for the duration of the call.
Please note that English translation is for convenience purposes only. In case of any inconsistency, management's statements in the original language will prevail. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Hu Wei. Please go ahead, sir.
Dear investors and analysts, welcome to JD Logistics' Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024. This is Hu Wei, CEO of JD Logistics. Thank you for joining us today. In 2024, China's economy maintains an overall steady and progressive trajectory with a clear trend of recovery. Amid market opportunities and challenges, JD Logistics remains dedicated to reducing costs, enhancing efficiency, and improving customer experience, continuously reinforcing our competitive advantages in ISC solutions and service products. By creating value for our customers, we achieved high-quality growth in both revenue and profitability. In the fourth quarter of 2024, JD Logistics' total revenue reached RMB 15.1 billion, an increase of 10.4% year-over-year.
Revenue from external customers increased by 10.4% year-over-year to RMB 36.2 billion. Furthermore, our profitability improved year-over-year for the eighth consecutive quarter. Our non-IFRS net profit was RMB 2.2 billion, increasing by 23.4% year-over-year, and our non-IFRS net profit margin was 4.3%, an increase of 0.5 percentage points year-over-year. Over the past year, we have further consolidated our differentiated competitive advantages centered on ISC solutions and high-quality logistics services by continuously optimizing warehouse network deployment, advancing technological innovations, and enhancing operational efficiency. In 2024, our total revenue reached RMB 182.8 billion, increasing by 9.7% year-over-year. Revenue from external customers increased by 9.6% year-over-year to RMB 127.8 billion, accounting for nearly 70% of total revenue. As our business steadily expanded, our annual profitability also set a new record. In 2024, our non-IFRS net profit was RMB 7.9 billion, increasing by 186.8% year-over-year.
Non-IFRS net profit margin was 4.3%, which is the highest annual profitability we've reached since our listing. We have consistently adhered to the core operational philosophy of placing products as close as possible to customers, reducing handling frequency and minimizing fulfillment distance. By continuously optimizing our network, deeply integrating digital and intelligent technologies into diverse logistics processes, and realizing the benefits of economies of scale, we have driven our own high-quality development while also reducing overall social logistics costs and achieving cost reductions and efficiency improvements for more industries and corporates. In 2024, revenue from ISC customers increased by 7.2% year-over-year to RMB 87.4 billion. This included RMB 32.3 billion in revenue from external customers, up 2.8% year-over-year.
Building on our focus on six industries, including fast-moving consumer goods, home appliances, and home furniture, 3C, apparel, automotive, and fresh products, we continuously enhanced our product and service capacities and offered differentiated solutions to address pain points and needs in specific segments, thereby gaining greater recognition from our customers for our ISC services and uncovering new opportunities for deeper collaboration. In 2024, the number of our external ISC customers amounted to over 80,000, a year-over-year increase of 8%, with the ARPC reaching RMB 400,000. In 2024, we achieved notable revenue growth in industries like FMCG, home appliances, and home furniture. We capitalized on the deepened implementation of trade-in policies for used goods and national subsidies for home appliances in 2024 to achieve significant growth in the home appliance industry.
Leveraging our nearly 400,000 in-house delivery personnel and industry-leading delivery installation, disassembly, return, integrated service model, we efficiently facilitated the rollout of the 2024 National Home Appliance Subsidy Policy. Additionally, in the home appliance industry, we also provided post-return quality inspection services for large appliances, along with integrated forward and reverse logistics, and replicated and extended these capacities. Furthermore, in the medium-sized appliances, in 2024, we offered reverse refurbishment services to a leading small appliance brand. Meanwhile, to address these customer pain points and needs, we developed a solution centered around post-return quality inspection and refurbishment, restocking in nearby warehouses. This new model reduces the number of individual item handling frequencies by four times compared to our original model and significantly shortens fulfillment distances, effectively helping customers improve turnover and lower costs.
After 2024, JD Logistics launched its services on several Tmall platforms, covering mainstream e-commerce platforms in China, enabling us to implement online and offline omnichannel ISC services. By helping more customers consolidate their e-commerce channels and share inventory across different platforms, we aim to reduce inventory turnover cycles and enhance supply chain efficiency. For example, in FMCG, we significantly deepened our partnership with a globally renowned consumer goods brand in 2024. As the first Chinese supply chain solutions and logistics provider to work with this brand, we took on the entire supply chain operations in China and successfully implemented an online and offline omnichannel supply chain service model. To address the brand's pain points in managing multiple business scenarios and product categories, we introduced our B2C multi-scenario full category two -way housing integrated service.
This flexible innovation has not only helped our customer optimize the inventory management and effectively reduce inventory turnover days, but also lowered the costs and enhanced efficiency. Additionally, it improved the end customer experience, boosting the brand store rating across diverse platforms and facilitating its partner business growth. While steadily enhancing our leadership in China's ISC market, we are actively expanding into overseas markets. Guided by our global smart supply chain network plan, we consistently advanced our global supply chain infrastructure network. In the fourth quarter of 2024, we opened a new overseas warehouse in Japan and Southeast Asia. We doubled the gross floor area of our overseas warehouse in Malaysia, further enhancing our regional service capacities. At the end of 2024, we operated more than 100 bonded warehouses, international direct distribution warehouses, and overseas warehouses, covering an aggregated GFA of 1 million sq m .
Our overseas warehouses now cover 19 countries and regions worldwide. Our revenue from overseas ISC logistics services maintained a strong growth trend. In terms of our cross-border transportation capacities in Q4 2024, we expanded our international cargo lineup by adding several new routes, including dedicated China-Malaysia chartered services from Shenzhen to Kuala Lumpur, further reinforcing the air freight channels between China and Southeast Asia. As part of our business development, we secured a new partnership with a leading Chinese EV brand, providing them with China-Europe trunk line services and warehousing and distribution in France. We've also provided full-process services, including cross-border transportation, customs clearance, warehousing, and distribution for another Chinese auto brand, expanding overseas in the Middle East. We launched the Benchmark Project, our first auto spare parts warehouse.
We implemented the integrated sea freight inbound to the Middle East distribution service model to offer efficient logistics support for Chinese auto brands venturing to global markets. To support Chinese global enterprises, cross-border merchants, and overseas business in achieving cost reduction, efficiency enhancement, and high-quality growth, JD Logistics aims to increase its overseas warehouse GFA by over 100% by the end of 2025. We also continue to expand our domestic bonded warehouses and direct distribution warehouses, elevating our global supply chain capacities and facilitating the efficient flow of goods between domestic and international markets. In 2024, we continually elevated customer experience and satisfaction, ensuring that our standardized products, such as express delivery and freight delivery services, consistently present the industry's highest quality, performance, and reliability. In 2024, our revenue from other customers primarily, including fresh and freight delivery services, increased by 12.1% year-over-year to RMB 95.5 billion.
In terms of express delivery services, we continue to enhance our delivery time-based capacities. As of December 31, 2024, JD Airlines has now fully operated all cargo airplanes in regular operational condition with our investment in better capacity resources and land transportation routes. We continue to expand our network of high time-based routes, providing efficient logistics support for fresh produce transportation for delivery services of high-value fresh products like the hairy crab, beef lamb, and cherries. We leverage our well-established safe and efficient cargo network and the synergy with our warehouse and logistics infrastructure network to further enhance interregional logistics promise. This effort ensures that more regional specialties can be delivered to customers as fast as possible and in the best condition despite the closing boundary distances, driving significant business growth fast.
During the recently passed beef and lamb season, we gradually rolled out dedicated all cargo flights for beef and lamb cross Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Gansu, further upgrading our guarantees for service quality and delivery promise. Throughout all cargo operations, the efficient flight scheduling and high-precision cargo allocation strategies significantly minimized the transit time, ensuring swift starting and efficient circulation for beef and lamb. Additionally, we celebrated the first anniversary of JD Express service upgrading Hong Kong and Macau through distinctive services such as night-time pickups and deliveries, as well as intercity routes as fast as drivers. We have significantly elevated the local time shopping and delivery experience to provide growth in our express delivery order boarding cross Hong Kong and Macau. Throughout our business development process, we have adhered to our core value, customer first.
JDL remains dedicated to offering premium services such as to-door delivery, on-demand pickup delivery, and to-door return exchange, continuously enhancing the quality of our express delivery services. This professional and reliable service has earned trust and preference for customers and our consumers. In December 2024, we secured a leading position among logistics service providers in service quality rankings published by leading five streaming e-commerce platforms, including survey results published by State Post Bureau of PRC, our express delivery services have complimented and best in class. Moving on to the freight delivery services, with consideration of the Deppon L ogistics, Kuayue E xpress, we rank among the top tier in China in terms of freight volume and revenue. We provided our customers with stable, reliable, and flexible products of freight delivery. This has enabled us to achieve business growth and expand our market share in various niche markets.
For instance, in high-value sectors such as communications and industrial goods, we offered freight services with the highest level of timeliness, such as a 24-hour dedicated vehicle pickup and delivery to our customers to meet their needs for extreme timeliness and security. In terms of safeguarding service quality, we took the lead in the industry to achieving full visibility of the entire process, including pickup, transfer transportation, and delivery, helping them reduce the damage rates and loss rates of delivery goods. Our network infrastructure and continuously improving technologies are the cornerstones supporting our strategy development. Our network infrastructure consists of a six-in-one logistics network, including warehouse, line-haul transportation, last mile delivery. At the end of 2024, our warehouse network covered nearly all counties and streets in China, consisting of over 1,600 self-operated warehouses and over 2,000 third-party warehouses.
Our warehouse network has aggregated the GFA of more than 32 million sq m, including warehouse-based management through the open warehouse platform. We spared no effort in optimizing our supply chain capacities to serve a wide range of customer bases. We continue to expand the reach of our self-operated pickup delivery service to serve all the customers, allowing them to benefit from reduced logistics costs and improved logistics service quality in Tibet. We extended our service from urban areas to townships closer to farmers and herders, reducing delivery time for them and enabling rapid nationwide distribution of our plethora agri products. This niche effectively supports rural communities' prosperity. At the end of 2024, we employed over 3,300 in-house delivery and operational personnel, ensuring top-quality services. We consistently prioritize technological innovations as a core of our development.
We continuously integrate advanced algorithms and technologies into our daily operations, driving transformations in logistics network deployment, site operation process, automation applications, and transportation scheduling. In 2024, we fully upgraded our digital and intelligent supply chain technology ecosystem with JD Logistics Super Brain, deeply integrating technologies including AI, big data, and operations research into diverse logistics process. In 2024, we also launched and deployed our newly self-developed Jingdong Logistics Zhilang. It precisely automated the warehousing solution. With its characteristics of being three-dimensional, intelligent, and user-friendly, it formed an efficient and intelligent logistics solution for picking up and storage within the warehouse compared to traditional methods. This solution significantly enhanced both picking and inbound efficiencies. It drives our improvement in warehousing operations, reducing operation costs and greatly easing the workload of employees.
Through 2024, we remained committed to the goal of high-quality growth, advancing our industry-specific capacities and technological innovation to provide our customers with more efficient and reliable ISC services. For 2025, JDL will strategically align with China's national initiatives and promote exploration and innovation. As we cultivate our industry-specific supply chain capacities, we will specifically address new demands in sectors like 3C home appliances. We will tailor innovative service offerings through technological empowerment, fully supporting and facilitating the source implementation of those policies. Meanwhile, we continue to execute our global smart supply chain network plan and comprehensively advance the deployment of the global warehouse network, air freight networks, and the national express delivery service classes. This will enable us to offer global ISC services to more Chinese global brands, overseas customers, and cross-border e-commerce platforms, achieving ultimate inefficient worldwide global supply chain logistics.
Besides, we will also further enhance our standardized products such as express delivery and freight delivery services. We remain firmly committed to optimizing cost, efficiency, and customer experience by joining hands with stakeholders along the supply chain. We will strive to build robust distributors that will further strengthen JDL's global competitiveness and value society. We will actively respond to national calls to reduce social logistics costs and aim to drive the improvement of service standards industry-wide and the sustainable and healthy growth of the industry. Thank you. Next, I'd like to welcome Mr. Wu Hao to discuss the details of financial performance.
Thank you, Mr. Hu. Hello, everyone. I'm Wu Hao, CFO of JD Logistics. I'm pleased to present the JD Logistics financial performance for the fourth quarter and full year for 2024.
In the fourth quarter of 2024, as China's macroeconomy maintained a stable upward trend, JD Logistics achieved a continued year-over-year improvement in core profit metrics while driving high-quality growth. In the fourth quarter, our net average profit was RMB 2.23 billion, with a profit margin of 4.3%, up 0.5 percentage points year-over-year. This marked our eighth consecutive quarter-of-year-over-year net average profit margin improvement. For the full year of 2024, our profit reached its highest level since our listing. Our net average profit was RMB 7.92 billion, increased by 186.8% year-over-year, with a profit margin of 4.3%, up 2.7 percentage points year-over-year. This resulted in our ongoing efforts to enhance efficiency and reduce costs by optimizing our network structure, integrating digital and intelligent technologies into our operations, and consistently refining our operations. In 2024, total revenue reached RMB 182.84 billion, up 9.7% year-over-year.
In the fourth quarter, we strengthened our capacities in service experience and delivery promise improvement to enhance our product competitiveness. Our total revenue reached RMB 52.10 billion, up 10.4% year-over-year, representing a higher growth rate compared to the previous quarter. Notably, revenue from external customers reached RMB 36.24 billion, accounting for nearly 70% of total revenue, reflecting our external business' steady expansion. Revenue from ISC customers totaled RMB 24.89 billion in the fourth quarter, up 8.2% year-over-year. Among them, ISC revenue from JD Group amounted to RMB 15.86 billion, up 10.3% year-over-year, benefiting from the implementation of national subsidy policies and JD's retail impressive sales momentum during the quarter. Revenue from external customers achieved steady growth, reaching RMB 9.03 billion. We consistently delivered ISC solutions to customers across various industries by deepening our focus on six industries and addressing bigger specific pain points and needs of each segment.
We enabled our ISC solutions and the product service capacities. This enabled us to meet their diverse needs of customers at all levels, helping them reduce logistics costs and improve operational efficiency. Our ISC service continued gaining recognition as a result, driving growth operations with more customers in the fourth quarter. The number of external ISC customers amounted to 61,684, up 11.4% year-over-year. In the fourth quarter of 2024, our revenue from other customers, primarily including express and freight delivery services, maintained healthy growth, increasing by 12.5% year-over-year to RMB 27.2 billion. During the quarter, we provided comprehensive one-stop services for fresh produce production zones through investment in and integration of resources across air and rail transport. We achieved revenue growth and expanded our market share in the delivery of fresh products such as hairy crabs, beef, and lamb.
Additionally, we continue to expand our collaborations with e-commerce platforms, achieving business growth. With respect to freight delivery services, we rank among the top tier in China in terms of both freight volume and revenue. Our flexible and diverse freight services meet a wide range of time-based and service requirements from customers, supporting our deepening market penetration across different freight delivery segments. In addition to revenue growth, we achieved year-over-year improvements for our gross margin in both the fourth quarter and the full year of 2024. Through our continued technology-fueled efforts to optimize network structure and refine cost controls, in the fourth quarter, the gross margin was 9.6%, up 0.4 percentage points year-over-year. Next, let's turn to the main cost of revenue. First, the employee benefit expenses were RMB 17.1 billion in the fourth quarter, up 10.9% year-over-year.
The increase was mainly attributable to the year-over-year increase in the number of our frontline operation employees in delivery and warehousing, with the number increasing from approximately 440,000 at the end of the fourth quarter last year to approximately 480,000 at the end of the fourth quarter this year. The increase in the number of operation employees was attributable to the addition of our own employees to key operation processes such as warehousing and last mile delivery, aimed at upgrading our products and services and elevating customer experience. Through enhancements in express delivery promise and service quality, we ranked among the top logistics service providers on a leading live-streaming e-commerce platform during the quarter. In the fourth quarter, employee benefit expenses accounted for 32.8% of total revenue, up 0.2 percentage points year-over-year. Second, our outsourcing cost was RMB 19.7 billion in the fourth quarter, up 11.7% year-over-year.
It accounted for 37.9% of total revenue for the quarter, up 0.4 percentage points year-over-year. The increase in outsourcing cost and outsourcing cost as a percentage of total revenue was primarily driven by changes in their own business structure. Third, our total rental cost was RMB 3.1 billion in the fourth quarter, down 6.5% year-over-year. As we continued to promote site integration and optimize network structure, we improved utilization efficiency in our sites. Our total rental cost accounted for 6% of our total revenue in the fourth quarter, down 1.1 percentage points year-over-year. Apart from the major costs mentioned above, we continually advanced management and control refinements through technological empowerment, enhancing operational excellence. Our depreciation and amortization costs and other costs as a percentage of total revenue remained stable year-over-year.
In terms of expenses, our operating expenses in the fourth quarter of 2024 were RMB 3.25 billion, up 6.8% year-over-year, and accounting for 6.2% of total revenue, down 0.2 percentage points. Among them, sales and marketing expenses were RMB 1.5 billion, accounting for 2.9% of total revenue, up 0.2 percentage points year-over-year. Sales and marketing expenses accounted for 4.2% of revenue from external customers, up 0.2 percentage points year-over-year. We maintained moderate investments in sales and marketing personnel to drive business growth. In Q4 2024, our R&D expenses were RMB 920 million, up 4% year-over-year, accounting for 1.8% of total revenue, down 0.1 percentage points. We have allocated our R&D resources to strengthen our end-to-end automation, digital, and intelligent capacities, including ongoing exploration of cutting-edge scientific applications in diverse logistics scenarios.
We are consistently upgrading our large model-powered digital and intelligent solutions to drive further cost savings and efficiency improvements in diverse logistics scenarios, including warehousing, planned transportation, delivery, and customer services. On general administrative expenses, RMB 820 million, down 6% year-over-year, and accounting for 1.6% of total revenue, down 0.3 percentage points, mainly attributed to the improvement of our management efficiency. In terms of profit, please also consider our non-IFRS measures, which we believe may better reflect our core operations. Both non-IFRS and non-IFRS EBITDA exclude items that we believe are not indicative of our core operating performance to help investors and other users of our financial information better understand and evaluate our core operating results. In the fourth quarter of 2024, our non-IFRS profit was RMB 2.23 billion, up 23.4% year-over-year, with a net increase of RMB 420 million.
Net average profit margin was 4.2%, up 0.5 percentage points, improving year-over-year for the eighth consecutive quarter. The improvement in net average profit margin was primarily attributed to the impact of the year-over-year increase in the gross margin. Net average EBITDA for the fourth quarter was RMB 5.33 billion, increased from 7.3%, with a net average EBITDA margin of 10.2%. With a strong year-over-year growth in free cash flow and ample cash reserves, we were positioned to support the company's long-term business development needs. In Q4 2024, considering these related payments, we recorded a net inflow of RMB 3.9 billion in free cash flow, increased of nearly 1.1 billion. This was primarily driven by year-over-year profitability improvement, as well as proactive internal measures to clear overdue receivables and accelerate receivable collections. Our capital expenditure was RMB 1.2 billion for the fourth quarter.
Going forward, we will enhance the ROI of our resource investments based on our business development needs, making prudent and effective capital expenditures to strengthen our middle-to-long-term capacities, improve our network structure, and enhance operational efficiency. Before we wrap up, I would like to express our heartfelt thanks to our stakeholders for their enduring support and trust in JD L. Moving ahead, we will remain firmly committed to our core development strategies, continuously investing in and building our key strengths. Specifically, we will enhance our industry-specific service capacities and product competitiveness to drive deeper penetration into external markets and sustainable business growth. Additionally, we will leverage the technology to solidify our profitability through refined operation management and innovative efficiency improvements, creating great value for our shareholders. Thank you. That includes my prepared remarks. Now, we can start the Q&A session.
Thank you, Mr. Wu Hao. This includes our prepared remarks.
We would like now to open the call for your questions and we are going to accept the Chinese questions alone, and the management will give you the Chinese answer as well. Thank you for your operation.
Operator, please go ahead. Thank you. As a reminder, please press star one on your telephone touch-tone keypad. If you have any follow-on questions, please re-enter the queue. Thank you. Goldman Sachs , please go ahead with the question.
Thank you for the questions. To the management leaders, I have seen a robust performance in Q4 and the full year. I have two questions. I want to check with you the quarter-to-quarter decrease on the margin for Q4 and for the 2025 market of freight and delivery. I want to ask your strategies ahead. This is my first question.
For the second question, I want to check with your partnership and your contract with JD Retail. I want to check with you about the price, the contract value, and could you share with us some of the information. Compared to the 2024 contract, what will be the contract value for the new year, the upcoming year. Do you have any new information about that? Thank you.
Thank you for the recognition. In Q4 of 2024, we are seeing improvement on the margin, and we want to lay a foundation for the middle and long-term user experiences. That is why we are improving the timeliness. We are adding more than 100 backbone routes nationally in Q4. We are adding new freight and cargo airplanes, and we have a good air route as well. Those are measures we have put in to improve our efficiency.
That's why we have improved our efficiency as well as the timeliness. The network is further expanded. In the e-commerce platforms, you can see the service provider ranking. So we are on the top. We are belonging to the top-tier suppliers in China. Additionally, we are also investing heavily on the human resources. The operational personnel are on the rise as well. At the delivery side, the customer experience, the timeliness, and the response have improved significantly. Additionally, we are also doing a great job in the low-tier cities. That is a market of great potential. The sites, as well as outlets in the small towns and villages, are outstanding, improving our service capacities out there. At the same time, with our in-house vehicles, automation, equipment, warehousing automation, we will continue to further our investment to improve efficiency and timeliness. Those investments require time to generate good outcomes.
At the end of the day, in the middle and long term, we are going to hold high expectations for the corporate growth. I believe that those are the cornerstones for us to ensure long-term growth and market competitiveness, and those are the efforts for us to drive up the economies of scale. The second question is the pricing with JD Retail. We are following our market model to ensure a good pricing in 2025. The pricing has been concluded, no big change compared to 2024. I don't think it will be a great impact on us. So I want to share with you our strategies on the delivery and freight. We know that for the delivery, we have to be stable, and we are continuously making adjustments and refinements, giving good experiences to our users and customers over our continuous investment. The time-based user experiences are further improved.
We have expanded our routes through different measures and efforts. We have the full cargo airplanes. We are going to reduce distribution. And in terms of the livestreaming e-commerce platform rankings, we are on the top right now. In the next year, I want to share with you in 2024, we are seeing great improvement. And in 2025, we will take up all the opportunities to drive up our business. By working with different platforms, we are seeing expansion strategies. In terms of the product, the sales, the operation, the full chains, we are going to see improvement at all fronts. And we are seeing the ever-fierce competition. And we want to avoid the low-price competition. We want to avoid the poor-quality products. For us, JD, we want to offer premier services to customers. We want to give them good experiences. In 2025, we want to optimize experiences, yes.
We want to stay efficient, fast, and stable, and we are also going to offer you different selections gradually. The market penetration market this year will be boosted to boost our business in the long run. Thank you.
Next question from Citibank, please.
Good to see you. Dear leaders, good evening. Thank you for having such a beautiful performance and two questions. The first question is about the profit margin. So I want to listen to opinions about the 2025. Can you share with us the trend for this profit margin? And do you have share with us your estimations? The next question is about the national policies on the currency, and how do you view the inventory and the added value? The next is on the Taobao and Tmall. What's your business on those two platforms? Any change and any improvement? Thank you.
In 2024, the gross margin was improved significantly. We are in the leading position in the industry. In 2025, we will remain at that level as we are gaining more momentum. It would be a certain impact on the gross margin. So we will be stable, generally speaking, and we are going to check the impact from the tax and the fee. There might be a little bit of impact, I have to say. For the Taobao and Tmall, I want to welcome Mr. Hu to give you his statement.
For the national subsidies and policies, I believe that will create a positive impact. But the national subsidies, in my opinion, will share subsidies to smartphones in 2025. In the past, it was about the home appliances, but it's not like GMV. It is charged piece by piece for the national policies on subsidies.
Let's say 2024, the home appliances have been subsidized with good revenue to us. As Wu told us, we are not following GMV logics, and we are covering the small devices, the larger home appliances. In terms of the proportion, the home appliances are taking a stable proportion of our business, and it is growing positively. This year, it will cover the smartphone, the pad, and the small appliances, the 3C appliances. We are having a full process of the sign-up of the photo taking to ensure the safe implementation of the national subsidies on the 3C. It is a great chance for us to improve our capacities. It is also a good choice to collaborate with JD because we have our in-house delivery man. I believe that different brands will find our good services. In last October, we began to collaborate with Taobao and Tmall.
We offered logistics services to the merchants, including the freight, the delivery services, you name it. First of all, that is my place for us to reflect the power of ISC services. At present, we are getting into the fashion industry, the home appliances, the fast-moving consumer goods. We are collaborating with the leading Chinese home appliance brand to deliver the air conditioners, air conditioner in the beginning, and gradually cover most of their appliances and products, and we can also check their inventory as well. In the past, we are covering from the air conditioner all the way to the refrigerator and the washer. Gradually, the volume in the Taobao and Tmall was on the fast growth, driving the overall and the greatest scale economies for JD Logistics.
In 2025, we will continue our own China collaboration with Taobao and Tmall, and we will expand our business with the existing customers as well as the new customers at different segments and different fronts. We will offer value-added services, giving them better experiences. Thank you for the question.
Thank you.
Next question is from the Taoyi Fan from the U.S. Bank Securities.
Thank you for having me here. I have two questions as well. The first question is about your cost management. I read some news. In the first half of this year, you are going to recruit 30,000 of new employees. And this has been started from last year. So I want to check with you. Are you going to add altogether 30,000 employees from Q4 and this year? So what will be the impact on the cost increase?
Can you help us to make an estimation in 2025 and 2026 about the revenue growth? The next question is about your international business. The revenue of the international market, what is the proportion, and what is the impact on the profit margin? Thank you.
I want to take a question on the international market. The gross margin is very good, but we have to say the base is quite low. So the revenue proportion is still at a single-digit status. The international business is almost making the even. As we are expanding our international business in the preliminary stage, we are going to deploy investments on the network and warehousing. The international market is still booming. The ISC requirements are still high. We were developing new warehouses. The goods are well prepared by the customers.
I believe that in terms of the gross margin, we will see good outcomes. There will be no negative impact. In the medium and long run, there will be room for improvement. About the cost and investment, you are referring to the increased employment. Yes, from Q4, as we are having higher demands of the business, we are hiring more delivery men, the personnel at the front end. We are also improving the human efficiency. The employee experience is also optimizing. That is why that is also closely related to the business improvement. We have mature plans, invest on the employees. We are also investing heavily on scientific technologies and automation. We have our R&D center, and we have our algorithms optimized for technological innovation. We want to optimize continuously the employee experiences.
On the cost front, we will do further optimization and partially driven by technologies. Thank you.
Thank you.
Next question from Thomas Chong, Jefferies.
Good evening, management. Thank you for having me here. In 2024, I saw a very good and robust external customer growth, up to 80,000. So for the total number of the external customers, do you have a specific KPI? Or to maintain good growth, are you going to focus on the numbers or the ARPC? So which indicator do you prefer? That's my first question for the second question for the margin. This year's margin is almost the same as the previous year. In the next three to five years, are you going to have a KPI with a margin higher than what we see right now? The third question for the AI deployment, I want to listen to opinions about AI or logistics. Thank you.
I want to take up the first question about the customer number. At Q4, I see the optimization and the increase. I don't think we are going to focus just on the number. We are going to give them good services. That's why we are seeing the growth. The key thing is to respond quickly to our customers and giving them specific services as the environment changes, such as we are offering the home appliance industry, the integrated services. We are also offering the retrofit services to one brand, and we could also offer overseas warehousing and delivery services to some brands and overseas market. We want to be specific, and we want to give customized services and customized products or solutions. In the delivery and freight services, we're also seeing the live streaming industry is growing very fast.
The key is we want to give them customized services and products. That's why we could earn high-quality customers and business. The first question. The second question is on the 2024 focus on cost reduction and profitability optimization, and by the end of 2024, we gave the market a good result. In 2025, we hold an estimation that the market will bear fears, and we want to have a rational margin, and we have to build a strong product matrix, exploring the potentials of the market. In 2025, for the months to come, we have to improve the competitiveness of products, good services to the customers, the challenges, and address the fierce competition. For the profit margin in the long run, it's one of our key strategies and targets. This will be linked to question three.
In the medium and long run, it relies upon the technological upgrade and investment, as you are mentioning, the importance of AI. What is AI significant on the logistics sector? That is one way we invest heavily. In terms of the capacity scheduling, the network calculation, we invest heavily on AI and high technologies. For the warehousing automation equipment, that is also driven by technologies to manage the SKU, the inventory frequency. We have our own automation solutions backed by technologies. As we have new technological breakthroughs, the automation equipment, the algorithms, the operational development, with them well integrated, we are going to further boost our gross margin.