The turnover of the parent company of the Chinese webshop Temu has fallen sharply in the past quarter. The company is struggling with competition in the domestic market, but is also suffering from the trade war between China and the United States.
The profit of e-commerce company PDD Holdings in the first quarter almost halved compared to a year earlier. Turnover increased by 10 percent to 95.7 billion yuan (approximately 11.7 billion euros), while it more than doubled a year earlier.
According to the CEO, PDD Holdings has had to invest heavily due to “the rapid changes”. The concern is suffering from measures by US President Donald Trump, such as abolishing exemptions for levies on small packages.
Temu then decided to no longer ship packages to the US. The webshop has been very successful in recent years with the expansion to countries outside China. According to the European Commission, the webshop is even too addictive.
Temu wants to expand further to be less dependent on the US, but is encountering regulations in some areas. Japan is considering doing something about the tax exemptions for small packages and the European Union is considering an import duty of 2 euros per package on products that come from outside the EU.