Pinduoduo's performance "hits the brakes," as it plans to spend hundreds of billions to create another "Pinduoduo"

Radar Finance produced | By Ding Yu | Edited by Meng Shu

With revenue growth slowing and profit declining year over year, Pinduoduo—facing performance challenges—has decided to remake “itself” to break the deadlock.

On March 25, Pinduoduo released its Q4 and full-year 2025 financial reports. The reports show that in 2025, the company achieved revenue of 431.846 billion yuan, up 9.65% year over year; it recorded attributable net profit of 99.364 billion yuan, down 11.62% year over year.

Focusing on last year’s fourth quarter, Pinduoduo posted single-quarter revenue of 123.912 billion yuan, up 12.03% year over year, setting a historical high; it recorded attributable net profit of 24.541 billion yuan, down 10.59% year over year, and down 16.32% quarter over quarter.

Pinduoduo said that the decline in net profit was mainly due to Pinduoduo’s “one trillion yuan support” strategy, which entails sustained investment on both the supply and demand sides, dragging down the company’s performance to a certain extent in this fiscal year.

Pinduoduo CEO Zhao Jiazhen said: “As we have emphasized multiple times, compared with short-term performance, we are more willing to focus on long-term value that comes from giving back to the ecosystem.”

At a performance meeting, Pinduoduo also unveiled a major piece of news, announcing the formation of “New Pinduom” to launch brand self-operation, continuing to heavily invest in China’s supply chain.

Pinduoduo CEO Zhao Jiazhen announced that “focus, heavily re-invest in supply chain upgrade, and achieve high-quality development” is the group’s strategy for the next stage, and proposed “striving to remake another Pinduoduo in three years.”

By the close of the market in the U.S. Eastern Time on March 27, Pinduoduo’s share price was $99.81 per share, with a market cap of about $141.7 billion.

Revenue growth without profit growth; asset-liability ratio hits a new low in nearly a decade

According to Pinduoduo’s latest disclosed financial report, in 2025, the company’s annual revenue first exceeded the 400 billion yuan mark, rising by nearly 10% year over year to 431.846 billion yuan.

However, compared with Pinduoduo’s 89.68% in 2023 and 59.04% in 2024, Pinduoduo’s revenue growth rate has shown a continued trend of slowing.

Pinduoduo’s revenue growth mainly benefited from the growth in online marketing services and transaction services revenue.

Last full year, the company’s revenue from online marketing services and other businesses was 217.783 billion yuan, up 10.03%; in the same period, the company’s transaction services generated revenue of 214.063 billion yuan, up 9.27%.

However, Pinduoduo’s cost and expense growth last year was more pronounced, to a certain extent weighing on the company’s profitability.

Specifically, the company’s cost of sales grew 22.68% to 188.802 billion yuan last year; the growth mainly came from increases in fulfillment fees, bandwidth and server costs, as well as payment processing fees.

In the same period, the company’s operating expenses were 148.42 billion yuan, up 12.86%, mainly due to an increase in sales and marketing expenses.

The financial report shows that last year, Pinduoduo’s sales and marketing expenses were 125.288 billion yuan, up 12.57%, mainly because spending on promotions and advertising activities increased.

In 2025 as well, Pinduoduo continued investing in R&D expenses; this expense grew 30.31% year over year to 16.496 billion yuan, mainly due to increases in employee-related costs, bandwidth, and server costs.

As for general and administrative expenses, these were projects that saw some reductions last year; they decreased 12.14% year over year to 6.636 billion yuan.

Under the overall impact of rising cost of sales and operating expenses, in 2025 Pinduoduo’s operating profit was 94.624 billion yuan, down 12.73% year over year.

For the full year, Pinduoduo’s attributable net profit was 99.364 billion yuan, down 11.62% year over year; attributable net profit under Non-GAAP was 107.301 billion yuan, down about 12.3% year over year.

In addition, due to the decline in net profit, the cash flow from operating activities also decreased 12.29% year over year to 106.939 billion yuan.

However, Radar Finance noted that by the end of 2025, Pinduoduo’s total assets grew 24.75% year over year to 630.044 billion yuan, a historical high.

Of this, the company’s cash and cash equivalents amounted to 108.901 billion yuan, surging nearly 90% year over year; the company’s short-term investments increased 14.47% to 313.408 billion yuan.

By the end of 2025, Pinduoduo’s asset-liability ratio was 34.15%, down nearly 4 percentage points year over year, the lowest level in nearly ten years.

Invest 100 billion yuan over three years; Pinduoduo builds a self-operated brand

With strong capital at hand, Pinduoduo is preparing to “open territories and expand footholds.”

At the performance meeting, Pinduoduo officially announced the formation of “New Pinduom,” extending upstream into the industrial chain, embarking on a brand self-operation path, and continuing to heavily invest in China’s supply chain.

Zhao Jiazhen said: “In the next phase, the company’s strategic focus is not business diversification, but to focus on high-quality development of the supply chain and continue to leverage the advantages we have accumulated in the supply chain over the long term to achieve the platform’s remaking.”

“Believe that in the next three years, we will have the opportunity to remake another Pinduoduo,” Zhao Jiazhen believes. “Reinvest in the supply chain and remake another Pinduoduo—that is our duty.”

To reinvest in supply chain upgrades, as early as April of last year, Pinduoduo formally launched the “One-Trillion-Yuan Support” flagship benefits-for-merchants program. In the coming three years, it plans to invest resources such as funding and traffic exceeding 1 trillion yuan.

With sustained investment under “One-Trillion-Yuan Support,” Pinduoduo’s special initiatives—including “DuoDuo Good Specialty Products,” “New Quality Supply,” and “E-commerce Westward Expansion” (电商西进)—were rolled out one after another. Support for the supply chain also expanded from top merchants and small-to-medium merchants to every link in the industrial chain, significantly improving supply chain efficiency and the integrated capability of the industry, creating more room for profit and innovation for agricultural production areas and industrial clusters.

And the launch of the new brand “New Pinduom” is the key to Pinduoduo’s next plan.

At present, “New Pinduom” has established a new special-purpose company in Shanghai. In its first phase, it received a cash capital injection of 15 billion yuan. Over the next three years, it plans total investment of 100 billion yuan.

According to Tianyancha, in February this year Pinduoduo successively registered and established Shanghai New Pinduom Hongqiao E-Commerce Co., Ltd. and Shanghai New Pinduom Pudong E-Commerce Co., Ltd. Their registered capital is 10 billion yuan and 5 billion yuan, respectively. The legal representatives of both companies are Zhao Jiazhen.

It is reported that “New Pinduom” will rely on the dual-wheel drive of Pinduoduo’s domestic e-commerce and Temu’s cross-border platform to connect supply chain resources at home and abroad.

Over the past three years, Temu has entered more than 90 countries and regions worldwide, achieving leapfrogging growth supported by China’s supply chain.

On this basis, “New Pinduom” will further promote China-made manufacturing from contract manufacturing and large-scale overseas expansion to standardized output and brand overseas expansion, seizing the high ground of global industrial chain value.

Zhao Jiazhen said that in 2026, China’s domestic supply chain is entering a critical window period for transformation and upgrading. Pinduoduo will mobilize the entire group’s strength—everyone within the company will work with full focus—to strive to drive “New Pinduom” to achieve a high-quality transformation of domestically self-operated brands within three years, and to help China’s supply chain achieve transformation and upgrading and a leap in value.

According to iResearch (网经社), Liu Xuewen, associate professor at the School of International Law, Northwest University of Political Science and Law, believes that “New Pinduom’s” significance is not to simply remake Pinduoduo in the narrow sense, but to provide a new paradigm for China’s cross-border e-commerce—starting from industrial clusters, with branding as the core, and with global distribution as the destination.

Liu Xuewen emphasized that its prospects are undoubtedly promising, but whether it can move steadily and go far ultimately depends on three things: whether manufacturing advantages can truly be converted into brand advantages; whether Shanghai’s institutional dividend can be converted into global operating capability; and whether, amid platform self-operation and coexistence with merchants, it can uphold the bottom line of fair competition.

If all three are achieved, it may become an important example of China’s e-commerce moving from selling goods overseas to building brands overseas; if any one fails, heavy re-investment may not lead to high-quality growth, and could instead evolve into a test arena where high friction, high costs, and intense regulatory pressure coexist.

An observer for UNCITRAL (United Nations Commission on International Trade Law), Yang Lifan, associate professor at East China University of Political Science and Law, pointed out that the “New Pinduom” project also faces complex and severe external challenges: global trade protectionism is heating up; the U.S. tariff policy continues to exert pressure; the European Union strengthens regulation of low-value cross-border small parcels; and regional conflicts intensify global supply chain volatility and adjustments to layouts.

Anchoring China’s supply chain; remake another “Pinduoduo” in three years

Radar Finance noted that Pinduoduo’s current top executive—Zhao Jiazhen—is also a co-founder of the company. During Pinduoduo’s development, he has led the advancement of multiple major initiatives such as “DuoDuo Buying Vegetables.”

According to public information, Zhao Jiazhen, born in the 1980s, is from Shaoguan, Guangdong. He graduated from South China University of Technology with a major in e-commerce management.

As early as 2009, Zhao Jiazhen followed Pinduoduo’s founder Huang Zheng and worked together to operate the digital e-commerce platform Ouke. After that—from Leqi incubated by Ouke to Pinghao Goods and then Pinduoduo—Zhao Jiazhen has never been absent.

Pinduoduo’s official description of him is “a down-to-earth practitioner who grew up from the fields and villages,” and he initially oversaw the overall operations of Pinduoduo’s agricultural product category and the construction of an upstream supply chain for bringing agricultural products to market. In the second half of 2020, he led the team to open the cities first, creating and leading regional businesses. In the second half of 2023, he again led the team to drive an upgrade of Pinduoduo’s supply chain system.

From 2018 to 2023, Zhao Jiazhen served as Pinduoduo’s Senior Vice President. Starting in April 2023, he served as a director and Co-CEO of Pinduoduo.

In December last year, Pinduoduo announced at its annual shareholders’ meeting an upgrade to the company’s governance structure and implemented a co-chairman system. Zhao Jiazhen was appointed as co-chairman, jointly serving with Chen Lei as co-chairmen of the group and co-CEOs.

In addition, Pinduoduo also appointed Wang Mi as the group Senior Vice President of Engineering, and Li Jiong as the group CFO.

At that time, Chen Lei said: “Since Zhao Jiazhen took on the role of Co-CEO, our supply chain has developed into a key support for the entire platform and related ecosystem. In three years, Temu has taken the path of growth for Pinduoduo for nearly a decade—it’s really not easy. At the opening of the group’s new decade, we must return to our original aspiration and never forget our roots. This is both the premise and foundation for everything, as well as the fundamental driving force to achieve a new leap.”

Newly appointed as co-chairman, Zhao Jiazhen also remarked that 2025 was the tenth year of Pinduoduo’s entrepreneurship. The company has continued to accumulate in areas such as business, technology, and services, and its business has already reached most countries around the world.

And back then, Zhao Jiazhen had also issued the bold statement that “believe that in the next three years, we will have the opportunity to remake another Pinduoduo,” emphasizing Pinduoduo’s strategic determination to “heavily invest in China’s supply chain.”

Zhao Jiazhen said: “After repeated discussions, the company has anchored China’s supply chain as the core of business development in the next stage. We will continue to practice high-quality development, All in on the high quality and branding of China’s supply chain, realize the remaking of the platform and the industry, and drive the ecosystem to achieve a value leap.”

However, Zhao Jiazhen also acknowledged that the company’s governance and talent-system buildout has not kept pace with business expansion, and it faces many challenges. “We must carry out systematic changes to the organizational structure, culture, and governance system. The co-chairman system implemented by this board of directors and the two newly appointed young leaders are the beginning of this transformation.”

As the “top priority” after Zhao Jiazhen became co-chairman, can “New Pinduom” in the future carry Pinduoduo’s “ambition” and help the company achieve new performance breakthroughs? Radar Finance will continue to pay close attention.

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责任编辑：张恒星