JD Group's chief executive officer Liu Qiangdong recently visited Midea and signed a CNY20 billion strategic cooperation agreement with Fang Hongbo, chairman and president of Midea Group.

The two parties will enhance their strategic cooperation in smart home appliances, smart home services, sales channel expansion, product customization, and big data analysis.

Liu said that with its artificial intelligence and automation technologies, JD has helped a lot of traditional brands improve efficiency and lower costs to realize enterprise transformation and upgrade. JD is glad to achieve win-win with the manufacturing industry via strategic cooperations.

Fang said JD can provide manufacturing enterprises with Internet technologies, big data analysis, and a smart cloud platform, making it an ideal strategic partner for Midea, which is actively transforming and upgrading. Meanwhile, Midea's offline sales channels, especially those at the town and village level, can help JD access those marketplaces.

In September 2015, JD and Midea established a supply chain and began their in-depth coordination of electronic data interchange services.