E-Commerce Newcomer Pinduoduo Beats Market Expectations

Chinese e-commerce newcomer Pinduoduo has announced strong Q1 performance on Monday – in fact, stronger than expected. Beating markets’ expectations, the company’s total revenues for the first three months of 2019 surged 228% year-on-year to 4.5 billion yuan ($677.3 million).

The rise was largely driven by revenues from marketing services, paid for by online merchants in order to spur purchases and payments by the app’s users, an unaudited official release shows.

Pinduoduo had a monthly average of 289.7 million users in the quarter – 74% more than the same time last year. And in the twelve-month period ending March 31, 2019, the app boasted 440 million active merchants, up 50.23% year-on-year.

Some investors believe the results demonstrate Pinduoduo’s strong potential – though the company is still yet to profit and reported a net loss of 1.9 billion yuan for the quarter.