Will Pinduoduo be able to create another "Pinduoduo" after investing 100 billion over three years?

Ask AI · How will Pinduoduo’s trillion-yuan investment reshape the supply chain?

Jingchuangban Daily (Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily), March 25 — (Reporter Xu Zihao), Pinduoduo today released its 2025 fourth-quarter and full-year financial reports.

In terms of key financial metrics, Pinduoduo’s revenue continues to grow steadily. The report shows that in the 2025 fourth quarter, Pinduoduo’s revenue was RMB 123.9 billion, up 12% from RMB 110.6 billion in the same period last year; for 2025, revenue was RMB 431.8 billion, up 10% from RMB 10.68B in the same period last year.

However, contrasting with the revenue growth, the company’s net profit for both the quarter and the full year fell year over year. Pinduoduo’s full-year 2025 net profit attributable to ordinary shareholders of the company was RMB 99.3 billion, down 12% from RMB 112.4 billion in the same period last year; the 2025 fourth-quarter net profit also declined 11% to RMB 24.5 billion, compared with RMB 27.4 billion in the same period last year.

Of note, according to the financial report disclosure, as of December 31, 2025, Pinduoduo had RMB 422.3 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments, which increased significantly from RMB 331.6 billion at the end of the previous year

As of the time of publication, Pinduoduo closed at $10.679 billion, up 8.87%, with a market capitalization of $151.604 billion.

Reinvest in the supply chain and recreate “Pinduoduo”

Pinduoduo’s main businesses include two segments: online marketing services and transaction services. For 2025, online marketing services and other revenue increased 10% year over year to RMB 217.8 billion; transaction services revenue grew 9% year over year to RMB 214.1 billion.

However, the expansion speed on the cost side clearly exceeds the pace of revenue growth. For the full year, operating costs increased 23% year over year to RMB 188.8 billion, an increase roughly twice the revenue growth rate, mainly driven by higher fulfillment expenses, bandwidth and server costs, as well as payment processing fees. Total operating expenses increased 13% year over year to RMB 148.4 billion, with R&D expenses showing the most prominent growth—up 30% year over year to RMB 16.5 billion—mainly due to increases in employee-related costs and bandwidth/server spending.

The accelerated growth in costs directly compressed profit margins, with full-year GAAP operating profit decreasing 13% year over year to RMB 94.6 billion.

For this profit metric, which is highly sensitive to the market, Pinduoduo’s co-CEOs, Zhao Jiazhen, explained at today’s (25th) earnings call that the decline in profit was mainly due to the company’s continued investment on both the supply and demand sides.

At the meeting, Zhao Jiazhen said: “As we have emphasized many times, compared with short-term performance, we would rather focus on the long-term value created by giving back to the ecosystem.”

He revealed that the company, for the first time in the e-commerce industry, launched a trillion-yuan-level Huishang (merchant) strategy and took on the second-stage transit fee for “delivery into villages” orders, bringing more remote rural areas into the free-shipping zone. These cash-and-carry investments directly affected the company’s profitability performance for the period.

“At the next stage, the company’s strategic focus is not business diversification, but to concentrate on high-quality development of the supply chain and continue to leverage our long-term advantages in the supply chain, to realize a re-creation of the platform. We believe that in the next three years, we will have the opportunity to recreate another Pinduoduo,” Zhao Jiazhen continued at today’s earnings call.

He added further: “Reinvest in the supply chain and recreate another Pinduoduo—that is our duty.” To achieve this goal, Pinduoduo has already launched special campaigns such as “Duo Duo’s Great Specialty Goods” and “New Quality Supply,” shifting support from simply tilting toward more traffic to deeply supporting the entire lifecycle of product R&D, production and manufacturing, and sales.

Building a “new Pimb” and investing RMB 100 billion in cash to heavily back China’s supply chain

In December last year, Pinduoduo Group announced major personnel adjustments at a general meeting of shareholders. Zhao Jiazhen was appointed Co-Chairman and Co-CEO, and the strategy of “focusing on upgrading and reinvesting in the supply chain for high-quality development” was also clearly set. At that time, management established the goal of “recreating another Pinduoduo in three years.”

According to reporters from the Jingchuangban Daily, the strategy has entered the implementation stage. Today, Pinduoduo announced externally that it would form a “new Pimb,” planning to invest RMB 100 billion in cash over the next three years to build its brand self-operated business, continuously heavily back China’s supply chain, and help domestic industries achieve high-quality, brand-driven development. Currently, the “new Pimb” has already set up a special-purpose company in Shanghai, with its first tranche of cash capital injection of RMB 15 billion.

At tonight’s earnings call, Zhao Jiazhen provided a detailed explanation of the organizational structure adjustment. He said that over the past few years, Pinduoduo’s global business achieved breakthrough progress, and its business footprint has covered nearly 100 markets and formed a corresponding scale. However, under rapid expansion, the company’s governance system and the development of internal talent tiers have clearly lagged behind the pace of business growth; in operations and management, the company has repeatedly appeared stretched in several areas. In addition, with the current international geopolitical landscape changing rapidly, global trade and regulatory policies are continuously being tightened and updated, imposing entirely new and higher requirements on business operations.

Based on this, Pinduoduo believes it is necessary to initiate a systemic, structural effort to recreate organizational culture and corporate governance. The co-chair system launched at last year’s shareholders’ meeting and the newly appointed leadership team are exactly the starting point of this deep transformation. Zhao Jiazhen said that in the future, the company will invest more resources to upgrade and recreate the supply chain, achieving an overall upgrade of the supply chain operating model.

Facing the regulatory pressure of globalization that the market is highly concerned about, Pinduoduo’s Co-CEO Chen Lei also responded directly at tonight’s earnings call. He acknowledged that as the global political landscape becomes increasingly complex, regulations in each country and region—covering areas such as trade rules, tax policies, and data compliance—are continuously being adjusted and evolving, bringing significant challenges to Pinduoduo’s overseas business (represented by Temu).

Chen Lei said bluntly that recently, the company has received requests for information from regulatory authorities in multiple places. As the business scale continues to expand and the regulatory environment changes rapidly, compliance has become an unbreachable bottom line for corporate development.

He also pointed out that an external environment that is complex and changeable inevitably brings more challenges and uncertainties, and may even reshape Pinduoduo’s global development model. In response, Pinduoduo will stick to its established strategic direction, continue to focus on investing in supply chain capability building. By deeply enabling platform merchants and manufacturing enterprises, the company will help them build core competitiveness facing the market directly. Using a flexible and agile approach, it will iterate and adapt to changes in global trade policies, and steadily advance its global expansion under compliance constraints.

(Jingchuangban Daily reporter Xu Zihao)