Pinduoduo, China’s largest social commerce platform, announced today that its monthly active users (MAU) have exceeded 366 million in the past quarter, 76.3 million more than in the first quarter of 2019.
The company, founded only 4 years ago, is currently also China’s second-largest e-commerce platform by MAU, catching up with Alibaba’s 674 million MAU. Its Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) reached RMB 709.1 billion (USD $103.3 billion) in the past quarter with a 171% annual growth.
In its latest financial results, the company announced higher revenues and smaller losses for the second quarter of 2019 ended June 30, 2019. Pinduoduo said its total revenues were RMB 7.29 billion (USD 1.06 billion), registering a whopping 169% growth from the same period last year.
The social commerce platform specialized in budget goods also registered 483.2 million active buyers at the end of Q2, up 41% from the same period last year.
The company’s operating loss has gone down from RMB 6.6 billion (USD 934 million) in the second quarter of 2018 to RMB 1.5 billion (USD 217.1 million) for the last quarter.
“We are pleased with our results in the second quarter of 2019,” said Huang Zheng, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pinduoduo.
Pinduoduo’s sales and marketing expenditure has more than doubled in the past quarter (compared with the same period last year), reaching RMB 6.1 billion.
The company’s Vice President of strategy David Liu said the soaring marketing cost was here to stay because it was a “showing sign of success” of user engagement.
“As users engage more on our platform, merchants also see improved marketing returns from greater exposure and conversion. We plan to continue investing strategically in our users and merchants in 2019 to drive further engagement,” Liu remarked.
Annual spend per active buyer reached USD 213 on average at the end of Q2, a 92% increase compared with the same period last year.