E-commerce tycoon Huang tops China’s richest list

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E-commerce tycoon Colin Huang has become the richest man in China, an index showed Friday, capping a rise in fortune for a former Google employee whose Temu shopping site lured customers with low prices and powerful algorithms.

Huang, the founder of PDD Holdings, owner of Temu and Chinese trading app Pinduoduo, is now worth $48.6 billion, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index said.

He overtook Zhong Shanshan, head of beverage company Nongfu Spring, who had topped the list since April 2021, to become the 25th richest person in the world and the richest in China.

Right behind them is Ma Huateng, known as Pony Ma, the head of tech giant Tencent, whose WeChat is often referred to as China’s “everything app.”

In fourth place was Zhang Yiming, founder of Bytedance, the company that owns the wildly popular video-sharing platform TikTok.

Huang, born in 1980 in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, was a teenage math prodigy and former Google China employee.

In 2015, he founded online shopping site Pinduoduo, which has since grown into one of China’s fastest-growing e-commerce empires, rivaling Jack Ma’s Alibaba.

The app attracted customers with huge discounts and a wide range of products, sometimes offering surprisingly low prices in a very competitive market.

The overseas version of Temu debuted in 2022 in the United States, where the company has gained a loyal customer base thanks to its extremely cheap products manufactured and shipped from China.

Its success coincided with persistently high inflation, which prompted thrifty consumers to hunt for bargains. The trend has since gained popularity in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere.

Even though Temu only launched in Europe last year, it is said to have around 75 million average monthly active users in the region.

However, the app’s huge success has sparked accusations of unfair trading practices and low security standards.

This year, consumer groups in Europe accused Temu of manipulating customers into spending more money, making it harder for them to make “free and informed decisions”.

In April, South Korean regulators opened an investigation into Temu, suspecting the company of false advertising and unfair practices.

Last month, hundreds of sellers in China demonstrated at the company’s office in the southern city of Guangzhou, alleging unfair treatment when selling their products on the platform.

However, this did not significantly affect the company’s success, as in May PDD Holdings announced that its first-quarter net profit had more than tripled year-on-year.

The company’s U.S.-listed shares closed at $138.02 a share on Thursday, giving it a market capitalization of $191.68 billion.