Who is Temu

China’s PDD holdings launched cross border e-commerce platform Temu in September 2022.

In a landscape that is believed to be fixed and saturated, Temu surprised many with its quick rise to the top of ecommerce app rankings in the US through its aggressive acquisition tactics and wide selection of products.

Temu builds on the successes, failures and learnings of Amazon, SHEIN and Wish. It also leverages the team, experience and methodologies of Pinduoduo in China, which challenged Alibaba’s dominance to reach more than 700 million users, and more importantly, profitability. 

How did Pinduoduo achieve it? Will Temu be able to replicate the same success in a different market in the US? This report examines these questions.

The report consists of five major sections:

1. Introduction
2. Pinduoduo – the driving force behind Temu
3. How Temu came about
4. Temu’s strategy
5. Conclusion and perspectives
 
Here are some highlights from the report:

• How Temu caught our attention
• Pinduoduo’s challenge to Alibaba for e-commerce dominance in China
• Pinduoduo has had ups and downs, but eventually became profitable.
• Temu’s business model is inspired by Pinduoduo’s success in China