Pinduoduo surpasses Alibaba, JD.com in user numbers, as founder Colin Huang steps down as chairman in surprise move

Having handed over the reins as CEO to Chen Lei last July, Huang will now focus on research in food in life sciences, areas “where breakthroughs could drive the future of China’s largest agriculture platform”, Pinduoduo said in a statement on Wednesday. Pinduoduo has recently invested heavily in agriculture-related areas, including new technologies in its pursuit to become the world’s largest grocer. Its new grocery delivery service Duo Duo Grocery, known as Duo Duo Maicai in Chinese, has helped drive user growth during the pandemic.

Huang is also stepping aside just as the company he founded becomes China’s largest e-commerce platform by number of users and its latest earnings revealed revenues that blew past analyst estimates. The Nasdaq-listed company said it had 788.4 million annual active buyers in 2020, 57 million more than in the previous year, surpassing Alibaba’s 779 million and JD.com’s 471 million. Pinduoduo’s monthly active users reached 719.9 million in the fourth quarter.

Earnings were up 146 per cent in the fourth quarter to 26.55 billion yuan (US$4.1 billion) year on year. The company beat consensus estimates by 38 per cent.

“We are proud that we have become the world’s largest e-commerce platform by user numbers,” Chen said in the earnings call. “We will work hard to deliver even better results in the years to come.”

The Shanghai-based company started out by helping popularise social e-commerce in China, allowing users to get lower prices by inviting friends on social media to purchase the same item. In a similar model, Pinduoduo is now one of many platforms using community group buying to attract users with lower prices, which became more popular during the Covid-19 pandemic.