Pinduoduo launched its U.S. online shopping site as the Chinese e-commerce giant makes its first major push overseas.
The website called Temu, which went online Thursday, lists items across a number of categories including clothing, jewelery, pet supplies and home and garden, and could mark a new challenge to U.S. e-commerce leader Amazon.
Temu marks Pinduoduo’s biggest push overseas yet as the domestic Chinese economy faces a number of challenges from a resurgence of Covid-19 to an energy crunch. That has hurt economic growth in China and dampened consumer sentiment.
China’s biggest technology companies from Tencent to Pinduoduo’s e-commerce rivals Alibaba and JD.com continue to pursue international markets. Pinduoduo, a much younger company than Alibaba and JD.com, having only been founded in 2015, is behind its rivals when it comes to the overseas push.
Alibaba took a controlling stake in Singapore-based Southeast Asian e-commerce site Lazada in 2016 and has since invested money in the business to expand its presence in the region. Alibaba also has a separate website called AliExpress that services markets like Europe and the U.S.
Pinduoduo has grown quickly in its seven-year history to become one of China’s biggest e-commerce firms. The company has tended to focus on lower-income consumers by offering heavily discounted products. And it has been focusing on bringing agricultural products onto its platform to differentiate from rivals. The company is worth around $87 billion.
