By setting up a finance group, JD can empower its expansion into Internet finance, and the overseas division can help it tap into other markets to reach its goal of becoming a global company, Wang said.

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As a matter of fact, Liu, the founder and CEO, told a media briefing at the end of 2013 that his company had mapped out its 2014 plan and identified five priorities: technology, finance, online-to-offline, internationalization and expansion to third- and fourth-tier cities in China.

JD is apparently moving quickly into finance and internationalization by setting up two business groups to support their development. Xu Xinquan, a former senior executive of China's Huawei Technologies Ltd, the world's No 2 telecommunications equipment maker, said on his microblog on Monday that he has joined JD to head its overseas business.

As for the plan of building paipai.com - one of the e-commerce platforms that JD acquired from Tencent Holdings Ltd based on the pair's strategic partnership agreement inked last month - into a subsidiary, the Beijing-based company didn't reveal any specific details.

In an internal e-mail that was leaked Tuesday, Kate Kui, JD.com's senior vice-president, said paipai.com is expected to deviate from its current business model and set up a new strategy. Some analysts said the website might remain a customer-to-customer site because JD's core e-commerce function is business-to customer. But others said the subsidiary may focus on mobile e-commerce, which is a weak link for JD at the moment.

JD's rival, Alibaba, has been restructured several times since it was founded in 1999. Its latest restructuring, which came in January 2013, split the group into 25 different divisions to help its brands respond more rapidly to competitive threats.

JD.com moves to merge Tencent's e-commerce business	JD.com moving to Alibaba's home base