On the evening of May 27th, Pinduoduo released its latest quarterly financial report, with revenue of about 95.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10%, which is the lowest growth rate in recent quarters, and operating profit of 18.3 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 38%.

Compared to market expectations, Pinduoduo's revenue for this quarter was nearly 6 billion lower, and its profit was close to 9 billion lower. After the performance was released, the pre-market stock price fell by more than 20% at its highest, and finally closed down by nearly 14%.

For this performance growth rate, the market was not without expectations. Institutions such as Citigroup have also clearly pointed out that the slowdown in Pinduoduo's revenue growth will be a focus, but the huge investment in Pinduoduo's \billion yuan reduction\ and \trillion yuan support\ and other pro-business measures has far exceeded market expectations.

In the second half of last year, Pinduoduo's high-quality development strategy continued to accelerate, taking the lead in the e-commerce industry by launching a series of pioneering measures such as \billion yuan reduction\, \e-commerce goes west\, and \new quality supply\, helping millions of merchants to improve quality and efficiency.

Since the beginning of this year, Pinduoduo has launched a new strategy of \hundreds of billions of support\ on the basis of \tens of billions of reduction\, providing substantial financial support to both the supply and demand sides, continuing to reduce costs and commissions for merchants, accelerating the transformation and upgrading of the industry, and leading the e-commerce industry into a new stage of \comprehensive benefits for merchants\.

Reflected in the financial report data, Pinduoduo's marketing expenses reached 33.4 billion this quarter, a nearly 10 billion increase compared to the same period last year, and more than the spending during the e-commerce peak season in the fourth quarter. The investment effort is unprecedented, as Pinduoduo has reinvested a large portion of profits back into users and merchants through subsidies.

From a Maori perspective, this quarter's gross profit on Pinduoduo is also 5 billion lower than market expectations, and the advertising monetization rate is further declining on a year-over-year basis, mainly due to Pinduoduo's \billion yuan reduction\ policy significantly reducing the operating costs for merchants. Industry analysis generally believes that it is the aforementioned investment on the merchant side that has dragged down the revenue and profit performance for this quarter.

Compared to stock price fluctuations, Pinduoduo executives have sent more signals of increasing support for merchants during the conference call. Chen Lei, Chairman and Co-CEO of Pinduoduo Group, stated that although the investment in supporting merchants is accounted for as an accounting expense, it is more of a long-term investment. We firmly believe that only by prioritizing the interests of users and merchants can we create a higher quality platform ecosystem. Compared to short-term performance, the company values the intrinsic value of the enterprise over a longer period of 5 years, 10 years, and beyond.

\In the past quarter, changes in the external environment have brought new challenges to merchants. At this critical moment, we have leveraged the social effectiveness and responsibility of our platform enterprise to launch the 'hundred billion support' new strategy to firmly escort merchants through the cycle,\ said Zhao Jiazhen, Executive Director and Co-CEO of Pinduoduo Group. We demand that the entire company exerts its efforts in one direction, fully commits to this new strategy, prioritizes the interests of users and merchants, strives to provide more certainty for merchants, and promotes the smooth transformation of the industry.

Investing hundreds of billions to enhance high-quality development, with real money and silver nourishing both the supply and demand sides.

In the first quarter of this year, Pinduoduo continued to increase its efforts in high-quality development and officially established the \Merchant Rights Protection Committee\ (hereinafter referred to as \MRP Committee\), led personally by Zhao Jiazhen, coordinating various departments of the platform to comprehensively study the needs of merchants, continuously optimize the service mechanisms for merchants, and improve the platform's ecological construction.

On March 5th, the \Business Protection Association\ held its first merchants' symposium, with dozens of representatives from various industries such as fresh food, beverages, daily necessities, and sports equipment participating in the meeting. After in-depth discussions with the attending merchants, the \Business Protection Association\ introduced four major upgraded measures, including the \normalization of communication mechanisms\ and \illegal business warning functions,\ to further protect the rights and interests of merchants.

▲After the launch of the \hundred billion support\ plan, Pinduoduo has introduced a series of pro-business measures to give back to the industrial ecosystem.Jiao YansongCapture)

In order to jointly address the new challenges brought by the external environment with merchants, the \Merchant Insurance Association\ officially launched the \Hundred Billion Support\ major pro-merchant new strategy at the beginning of April, and has successively implemented a series of measures to give back to the industrial ecosystem. The \Ten Billion Reduction\ has significantly reduced the store protection funds for home appliances, digital products, and other categories. \New Quality Supply\ has increased support for small and medium-sized merchants, and the \2025 Duoduo Good Local Products\ special action has also been carried out in-depth in major agricultural specialty areas, helping merchants and farmers to increase production and income.

Zhao Jiazhen stated that, on the one hand, the platform will continue to explore more measures to reduce commissions, persistently reducing costs and burdens for merchants, creating more room for costs, operations, and innovation; on the other hand, the platform's assistance to merchants will expand from top-tier and mid-tier to small and medium-sized merchants, focusing efforts on the latter, daring to tackle the tough issues in high-quality development, maximizing the potential of small and medium-sized merchants, and promoting the industrial belt to achieve a larger scale and higher quality overall upgrade.

On the consumer side, the \hundred billion support\ has also implemented a number of subsidy policies that benefit consumers, with the platform's billion-yuan subsidy channel adding a \10 billion merchants' feedback plan.\ It has successively invested 10 billion yuan in consumer coupons, and through special activities such as \billion-yuan consumer coupons\ and \billion-yuan double subsidies,\ it has provided excessive subsidies for all categories of goods, meeting consumers' functional, personalized, and other multifaceted consumption needs. At the same time, it has improved the efficiency of supply and demand matching, helping new quality merchants and new quality brands to expand and add new volume.

Additionally, Pinduoduo has further explored the innovative model of \direct platform subsidies.\ On the basis of fully protecting the rights and interests of merchants, it benchmarks \national subsidy\ price standards across various categories, fully benefiting consumers, stimulating consumer demand and vitality, and helping platform merchants establish sufficient market competitiveness.

\New quality supply\ boosts small and medium businesses, accelerating the transformation and upgrading of industries.

Last September, Pinduoduo launched the \New Quality Merchant Support Program\, delving into hundreds of industrial belts and nurturing a group of new quality merchants with product and technological innovation capabilities. Through the \leading goose effect\ of these new quality merchants, the industrial belts have been driven to transform and upgrade. After the introduction of the \billion yuan support\, the \New Quality Merchant Support Program\ quickly spread from top merchants to small and medium-sized merchants in the industrial belts, and the platform's traffic engine, black label stores, and other resources also fully inclined towards small and medium-sized merchants.

Since March, Pinduoduo's \New Quality Supply\ special team has successively gone deep into the front lines of industries such as Jingxian Xuan paper, Yongkang kitchenware, Wenzhou women's shoes, Shenzhen digital products, Xin'an running shoes, and Jinjiang sportswear, providing comprehensive support in product, technology, operations, marketing, warehousing, and logistics for small and medium-sized merchants in various regions, greatly stimulating the industrial vitality of these areas and creating new momentum for the new quality transformation of the industrial belts.

In Yongkang, Zhejiang, the local hardware and kitchenware industry is unprecedented in scale, but has long been dominated by foreign trade OEM and domestic sales OEM, with severe homogenization of products and a single industrial development model. With the support of Pinduoduo, a post-95s entrepreneur upgraded and transformed the production line, significantly improving the efficiency of the supply chain, and leveraged the platform's black label stores to achieve brand development. In just one year, they expanded 10 production lines and also led many local businesses to shift from the traditional OEM model to the brand model, creating a second curve for the industrial transformation of Yongkang, known as \China's Hardware Capital.\

▲The \2025 Duoduo Good Specialties\ special action goes deep into dozens of agricultural production areas, helping farmers in various places to increase production and income.(Chen Zhenhao(shot)

As a platform that started with agricultural products, Pinduoduo's \100 billion plan\ has also further increased its support for agricultural merchants. At the beginning of April, the \2025 Duoduo Good Specialties\ special action was officially launched, successively entering agricultural specialty areas such as Lianyungang in Jiangsu, Ningde in Fujian, Wanning in Hainan, Yuncheng in Shanxi, Maoming in Guangdong, Chengdu in Sichuan, Dalian in Liaoning, Huan County in Gansu, and Fuzhou in Jiangxi. It has introduced customized plans for local specialties, conducted \one-on-one\ explanations with local small and medium-sized merchants, explored new models for the upward movement of agricultural products, helped the industry increase added value, and promoted the increase in production and income of the animal husbandry industry.

In the papaya production area of Mengzi, Yunnan, local merchants, with the support of the platform, have developed a digital system for agricultural product operations, achieving automated operation in the processes of agricultural product harvesting, shelving, pricing, logistics, after-sales, and traceability. This has addressed the industry's pain points such as vague product pricing and high loss rates, realizing the transformation of agricultural product operations from \manual experience\ to \data-driven,\ and completing the upgrade and transformation of the traditional agricultural supply chain.

In the field of agricultural research and technology, Pinduoduo's \100 billion support\ plan has also yielded new results. In late April, the \Digital Business Prosperity Agricultural Science Courtyard\ supported by Pinduoduo was officially unveiled in Gusheng Village, Dali, Yunnan, which is also the first technology courtyard in the country focusing on \digital commerce + new farmer training\. To date, this technology courtyard has implemented 1 nutrient intelligent management platform project, supported 7 high-quality agricultural research topics, and assisted more than 20 technology courtyards in bringing high-quality agricultural products online, becoming the activity base and headquarters of the \National Technology Courtyard Collaboration Network\.

\The market is changing rapidly at present, and our support and assistance to merchants is a responsibility we must undertake at this stage. Only by prioritizing the interests of users and merchants can we create a higher quality platform ecosystem,\ Chen Lei said, adding that we will continue to deeply promote high-quality development with the spirit of persistence, help a wide range of merchants to navigate the cycle, and firmly embark on a long-term development path facing the future.