Ask AI · How does Pinduoduo’s billion-yuan self-operated model reshape China’s manufacturing value chain?

01, The first batch has already been injected with RMB 15 billion

On March 25, Pinduoduo’s disclosed financial report shows that in the 2025 fourth quarter, revenue was RMB 123.9 billion, up 12% year over year, and full-year revenue reached RMB 431.8 billion, up 10%. However, profits declined.

At a subsequent earnings call, Pinduoduo co-chairman and co-CEO Zhao Jiazhen said bluntly, “The past year has been our biggest year of investment in high-quality development.” The portion reduced on the income statement flowed into the “billion-yuan support” strategy—an initiative launched in April 2025 that keeps injecting funds into fields and factory workshops.

Pinduoduo is also steadfastly investing for the future. That evening, it rolled out the long-gestating move: building a self-operated brand model. It has already set up a special-purpose company in Shanghai called “New Pimp.” Cai Jing Tian Xia learned that the “New Pimp” model integrates supply-chain resources from “Pinduoduo + Temu,” kicks off the building of a self-operated brand model, focuses on global markets, systematically self-operates and incubates brands targeting different markets and different categories, achieves high-standard output of Made in China, and further pushes China’s manufacturing toward value at the high end.

From what we can see so far, Pinduoduo’s self-operated platform “New Pimp” has received its first batch of cash injection of RMB 15 billion. Over the next three years, it plans a total investment of RMB 100 billion. After establishing the special-purpose company, Pinduoduo’s second major initiative is to set up a team to go deep into industrial clusters to provide integrated solutions covering products, technology, and marketing—promoting manufacturing upgrades. The third major initiative is to roll out an all-round overseas service covering standards, logistics, intellectual property, and legal and regulatory compliance—standing by merchants with full protection.

It is clear that Pinduoduo’s profit decline over the past year is the inevitable outcome of investing in strategies such as “billion-yuan support” and “New Pimp.” The financial report analysis also directly points out that the main reason for the decline in net profit is ongoing investment on both the supply and demand sides. In other words, Pinduoduo originally could have put profits into its own pocket, but instead reinvested them back into the industrial chain, turning them into an investment in the platform’s future.

In response, Zhao Jiazhen’s stance is exceptionally clear and firm. When addressing concerns from the outside world about slowing growth, he said that between short-term financial performance and the company’s long-term value in platform ecology, the company would “resolutely choose the latter,” and that future margin fluctuations “will be a normal state.” From this perspective, the “billion-yuan” plan for “New Pimp” is an upgrade and focus of the “billion-yuan support” strategy.

Zhao Jiazhen also clearly proposed a strategic goal to “strive to recreate another Pinduoduo in three years,” and emphasized, “Reinvest in the supply chain and recreate another Pinduoduo—that’s our duty.” Building “New Pimp” with an investment of RMB 100 billion is another key step and specific implementation action toward achieving that goal. To describe this race that requires stamina, Zhao Jiazhen used a highly vivid phrase—“the spirit of driving in nails.” He said, “We will set off again with an All in attitude and with the spirit of driving in nails, taking big steps forward.”

As for the logic behind Pinduoduo’s revenue hitting new highs again, it is rooted in Pinduoduo’s long-term, heavy reinvestment into the supply chain. Since the “billion-yuan support” program was launched in April 2025, supply-chain capabilities in industrial clusters such as An Yue lemon production in Anyue and packaging and bags in Shaodong have been systematically improved thanks to Pinduoduo’s involvement. In essence, this is more like “soil improvement” for the platform ecology.

In the earnings call, Zhao Jiazhen pointed out that “China’s domestic supply-chain system has become a key force supporting the platform ecology.” When the efficiency, quality, and brand strength of the supply chain are systematically enhanced, it becomes a matter of course that platform transaction volume and revenue will grow steadily.

02, The biggest confidence behind a lavish RMB 100 billion bet

Pinduoduo invests RMB 100 billion in “New Pimp.” Where does the confidence come from? The answer lies in the lemon orchards in Anyue County, Sichuan; the bag factories in Shaodong, Hunan; and the village-level depots in Fufeng County, Shaanxi. In the past year, Pinduoduo’s “billion-yuan support” has reshaped the production-and-sales chain of Chinese goods.

On the manufacturing side, Pinduoduo targets bottlenecks in the added value of agricultural products.

Anyue, Sichuan is “the land of lemons” in China. In the past, the purchase price for lemons had fallen as low as a few tenths of a yuan per jin, and for fruit grower Li Dajie, high yields often came with the troubles of unsold inventory. The online lemon business of post-90s entrepreneur Cao Jie also repeatedly ran into setbacks.

The turning point came when the “Duo Duo Good Local Specialty” team went deep into Anyue. They rolled out “one product, one solution”—from formulating grading standards, introducing customized packaging, to promoting the construction of deep-processing production lines. Guided in reverse by platform data, Cao Jie re-launched his products. At the peak, he could sell 4,000 jin of lemons in a single day, and to date has sold more than one million jin cumulatively.

Li Dajie’s 6 mu of lemon land generated last year an income of RMB 100,000—the kind of figure she previously “didn’t even dare to imagine.” The core of this transformation is completing the risky leap for agricultural products from “raw materials that depend on the weather” to “standardized, branded goods.”

On the product side, Pinduoduo resolved the challenge of branding. Shaodong, Hunan produces 70% of student backpacks in the country, yet it had long been trapped in the contract-manufacturing model and homogenous, cutthroat competition. Pinduoduo’s “new-quality supply” team came with data on consumption trends, and together with local factories, they developed and designed.

Soon, innovative designs that are ergonomically friendly and include safe reflective strips became bestsellers, helping Shaodong shift from “a contract-manufacturing backwater” to “a brand stronghold.” This shows that Pinduoduo not only knows how to sell goods, but has begun using digital capabilities to guide production in reverse and complete the key enablement from “white-label” to “brand.”

At the distribution end, Pinduoduo focuses on the e-commerce “last mile.” In Fufeng County, Shaanxi, Pinduoduo covers the “second-stage transfer fee” out of its own pocket. It consolidates parcels from 11 courier companies and delivers them in unified shipments through county-level transfer warehouses to 71 village-level depots. “Elderly people and kids can pick up their packages in 5 to 10 minutes by walking,” said Lu Guimei, head of the depot.

Wang Feifei, who manages the logistics and distribution center, found that after the business was launched, her income rose—“Now I’m also willing to buy things for myself.” Laying out this logistics network in practice reduces the circulation costs for society as a whole, and extends the value of the supply chain to the terminal level.

When Pinduoduo proves that it has the capability to go deep into the “manufacturing side” to improve efficiency, to remodel the “product side” to incubate brands, and to connect and optimize the “distribution side” experience, it no longer satisfies itself with merely being a “platform” that facilitates transactions. Moving into the field directly, integrating these proven capabilities, becomes an inevitable logic. This RMB 100 billion bet is precisely on the historical opportunity for China’s supply chain to shift from “scale-driven” to “value-driven.”

03, A heavier, slower “spirit of driving in nails”

What is the odds of success for “New Pimp”?

From a logic standpoint, Pinduoduo’s lineup is not bad. In addition to the supply-chain deep transformation that has already shown results, Pinduoduo also has a channel to “sell globally”—Temu. Temu is Pinduoduo’s cross-border e-commerce platform launched in September 2022. Its name means “Team Up, Price Down,” and it shares the same core philosophy with Pinduoduo’s domestic mission: buying together for cheaper prices.

After just a little more than three years online, this cross-border e-commerce platform has expanded its business to more than 90 countries worldwide. At the earnings call, Zhao Jiazhen attributed its rapid growth to the “key leap” enabled by the dividends from China’s supply-chain industrial strengths. Temu is like a globally woven sales network already in place. What “New Pimp” needs to do is to load “brands,” a higher-value new engine, onto this network.

Simply put, Temu has already paved the way for globalization for “New Pimp,” validating China’s supply chain’s global competitiveness and providing a feasible cross-border operating model. Most critical of all is determination. Zhao Jiazhen emphasized that compared with short-term performance, Pinduoduo is more willing to focus on the long-term value returned to the ecosystem. To that end, Pinduoduo has drawn a clear blueprint for the next three years of billion-yuan investment for “New Pimp.” This kind of focus on “All in supply chain,” along with organizational changes as it transitions from a platform model to a self-operated model, is the core driving force that ensures the strategy can be carried out firmly.

Looking across history, there are already pioneers on this path. Amazon builds dominance in basic categories by leveraging its own brands like “Amazon Basics,” using platform data and traffic advantages. Taking “Amazon Basics” as an example, today its categories have expanded from batteries and data cables to household goods and even thousands upon thousands of SKUs in electronics and more. Among retail enterprises, Sam’s Club and Fat Donglai’s private labels have become industry benchmarks.

Of course, Pinduoduo also faces a core challenge: a crossover of capabilities—from being a light-asset platform operator to becoming a brand owner that requires heavy investment in products, brands, and services. This first batch of injected funds of RMB 15 billion, and the three-year planned investment of RMB 100 billion, is precisely to fill this gap.

In the future, once “New Pimp” succeeds, Pinduoduo won’t just complete a thorough transformation from “a traffic enabler” to “a value leader,” but will also blaze a new path for branding in China’s manufacturing industry. However, this process is destined to be heavier and slower than a business that only relies on traffic. Pinduoduo’s answer to that is Zhao Jiazhen’s line about “the spirit of driving in nails.” Drive it in—and don’t look back.

(Author | Yi Xi, Editor | Wu Yue, Image source | Visual China; this content is from Cai Jing Tian Xia WEEKLY)