Temu owner Pinduoduo says triples net profit in first quarter

BEIJING — Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo announced Wednesday that its net profit for the first quarter more than tripled, as the Temu owner continues to boost its competitiveness in its home market and abroad.

Pinduoduo is one of China’s leading online retailers — owing largely to its success in reaching consumers in rural areas with a diverse offering of low-cost products.

The company’s overseas platform, Temu, has surged since its September 2022 launch to become one of the most popular online shopping sites in the United States, propelled by a marketing strategy that featured multiple prime-time Super Bowl advertisements.

Pinduoduo said net profit for the first three months of 2024 was $3.88 billion, up 246 percent from the same period last year.

READ: Chinese shopping app Temu wows US amid TikTok fears

The Shanghai-based firm added that sales in the first quarter were about $11.2 billion, an increase of 131 percent from the same period in 2023.

Temu expanded last year into the EU market, where it says its shopping app amassed an average of around 75 million monthly active users in the 27-country bloc.

But the shopping app’s rise has also encountered turbulence. In March, a promotional campaign in Britain and France backfired due to concerns over data privacy.

In April, regulators in South Korea opened an investigation into Temu on suspicion of unfair practices including false advertising and poor product quality.

READ: Consumer groups accuse Temu of manipulating online shoppers

Earlier this month, European consumer rights groups accused it of using manipulative sales techniques and lacking transparency about traders on the platform.

‘Critical’ year

Despite the setbacks, Pinduoduo remains the newest competitor to established e-commerce juggernauts, including Amazon in the United States and Alibaba in China.

At home, Pinduoduo has found growing success with low-price products as Chinese consumers curb their spending against a backdrop of economic slowdown and high youth unemployment.

In March, the company announced near-double annual profits in 2023, a year in which it briefly surpassed Alibaba — owner of Chinese e-commerce behemoth Taobao — in terms of market capitalization for the first time.

In pre-market trading on the Nasdaq on Wednesday, Pinduoduo’s stock price rose around eight percent.

On Tuesday, it was valued at around $202 billion, compared to Alibaba’s $209 billion.

And Pinduoduo co-founder Chen Lei indicated there was still space to grow.

“Our global business is still in the exploration stage and there’s plenty of room for improvement,” he said.

Pinduoduo’s executive director and co-CEO Jiazhen Zhao said this year would be “critical” to “deepen the execution of our high-quality development strategy.”

“We will focus our efforts on improving the overall consumer experience, strengthening our supply chain capabilities, and fostering a healthy platform ecosystem.”

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