Temu’s market share has soared as the app comes under scrutiny for forced labor and data harvesting concerns.
Huang, a former Google engineer, started ecommerce platform Pinduoduo in 2015 and saw his wealth rise to $71 billion in 2021 before he lost 87 percent of it the next year amid the Chinese regime’s regulatory “crackdown” on the tech industry. Now Huang is the 25th richest man in the world as shares in his PDD Holdings Inc. rise with Temu eating market share from ecommerce giants such as Amazon and other Chinese companies like Alibaba.
The shopping platform is app-only, requiring users to install its software onto mobile devices in order to purchase items that are deeply discounted through gamified mechanisms.
The company’s business practices have come under scrutiny.
On the supplier side, merchants have also reported dissatisfaction with the platform. On July 30, merchants launched a protest at Pinduoduo’s office in Guangzhou over the app’s practice of offloading the cost of consumer dissatisfaction onto suppliers via heavy fines and lack of protection for sellers.