While major Internet giants are pouring money into AI, Pinduoduo, with a cash flow of 436.1 billion, has taken a completely different path – focusing on the supply chain and betting heavily on self-operated brands.
On March 25, 2026, Pinduoduo officially announced the “New Pinduoduo” plan, investing 15 billion in real money in the first phase, with a total investment of up to 100 billion in the next three years, with the goal of “rebuilding Pinduoduo in three years.”
This 100-billion-dollar punch not only stirred up a pool of spring water for cross-border e-commerce, but also made the entire industry start to think: Is a big change in cross-border e-commerce coming?
1. With hundreds of billions of funds in place, what exactly is New Pinmu?
Many people are curious, who is the “New Pinmu” built with hundreds of billions of dollars?
It is not a single platform, but an independent project specially incubated by Pinduoduo for brand self-operation. It is personally led by co-chairman Zhao Jiazhen and established two special operating companies in Shanghai with a total registered capital of 15 billion yuan.
Among them, Shanghai Xinpinmu Hongqiao has a registered capital of 10 billion yuan, and Shanghai Xinpinmu Pudong has a registered capital of 5 billion yuan, both of which are wholly-owned by Pinduoduo’s core related parties.
To put it simply, New Pinmu is a key step for Pinduoduo to shift from “platform matching” to “deep self-operation”.
In the past, Pinduoduo and Temu worked as “traffic landlords”, relying on merchants to settle in and sell goods; but New Pinduoduo wants to personally become a “brand boss”, integrating Pinduoduo’s domestic industry advantages and Temu’s global consumption data of 90 countries, and taking the route of platform customization, buying out inventory, and underwriting and self-operating.
In terms of team configuration, Xinpinmu has formed an independent elite team of about a hundred people, most of whom are the core backbones of Pinduoduo and Temu. It implements a multi-team horse racing mechanism internally to efficiently promote the project.
The categories focus on the three major tracks of clothing, home furnishings, and outdoor. These three categories are the core categories of Temu’s overseas sales, accounting for 40% and 20% of the overall GMV respectively, and the market demand is stable.
The cooperation partners are targeted at big-name factories with international OEM backgrounds such as Bosideng, Youngor, and Camel, directly and deeply binding source production capacity.
According to the plan, the first batch of Xinpinmu products are expected to be officially launched in the U.S. and European markets in the third quarter of 2026. It will not set foot in the domestic market for the time being, avoid domestic e-commerce involution, and focus on the hard nut of cross-border Europe and the United States.
2. Why is it Xinpinmu?
Pinduoduo’s deep ambition
Pinduoduo’s decision to spend RMB 100 billion to build a new Pinduoduo is by no means an impulse, but an inevitable choice based on industry trends, its own pain points and long-term strategy.
1. Cross-border e-commerce has entered the era of “brand is king”
In the past few years, cross-border e-commerce has grown wildly by relying on “distributing goods at low prices”. Platforms such as Temu and SHEIN have quickly seized the market with extremely low prices.
But now, the low-price involution has come to an end. Tariffs and compliance costs have soared in the European and American markets. Consumers have also shifted from “only looking at price” to “valuing quality and brand.”
The era of simply relying on price differences to make money is over, and branding is the long-term solution.
The emergence of Xinpinmu is precisely to promote the upgrade of China’s manufacturing from “capacity overseas” to “brand overseas”.
2. Temu’s growth has encountered bottlenecks and is in urgent need of a new engine
As the cross-border core of Pinduoduo, Temu has swept more than 90 countries in three years and has grown at an alarming rate, but now its growth has slowed down significantly.
Many Temu sellers revealed that 2024 will be the peak period, with an average of thousands of orders per day; in 2025, it will drop to a few hundred orders; in 2026, the average daily order will be only a hundred orders, and orders will continue to decline.
At the same time, Temu’s merchants are mixed, with low-priced and low-quality goods frequently appearing, putting pressure on the platform’s reputation.
Xinpinmu strictly controls quality through self-operation, which can not only increase the premium, but also reshape Pinduoduo’s overseas image and become a new growth engine.
3. With hundreds of billions of cash flows in hand, long-termism bets on the future
Pinduoduo’s annual revenue in 2025 will be 431.8 billion yuan, with abundant cash flow and enough confidence to make long-term investments.
Compared with other major companies that spend money on AI, Pinduoduo chooses to delve deeply into the supply chain where it is best at, transforming China’s industrial belt advantages into global brand advantages, avoiding head-on competition with giants, and creating barriers to differentiation.
As Zhao Jiazhen said, this is the core strategy of “investing heavily in China’s supply chain and driving high-quality and brand-oriented development of the industry.”
3. Will cross-border e-commerce change?
Players from all sides are facing a major reshuffle
Pinduoduo has entered the game worth hundreds of billions, and New Pinmu is coming in force. The cross-border e-commerce industry is being completely restructured, and the fate of different players is very different.
1. Small and medium-sized sellers: dilemma, living space squeezed
After the launch of Temu, the “Foreign Trade Comprehensive Service Agreement” popped up in the backend of Temu sellers, requiring merchants to sign a contract and agreeing that the platform will provide full-link services such as export agency, logistics, and settlement. However, sellers need to bear higher risks, and may even have to pay 1 million liquidated damages for breach of contract.
Small and medium-sized sellers are in a dilemma: if they sign, the payment cycle will be long, there will be many deductions, and warehouse management fees will be high, and profits will be greatly compressed; if they don’t sign, orders will continue to decline, and they may even face the risk of store closure.
A home furnishing seller said helplessly: “Temu has fewer and fewer orders now. If you don’t sign, there is no way out. If you sign, you are afraid of being stuck by the platform.”
After Xinpinmu is self-operated, platform resources will be tilted towards its own brands, and the traffic and living space of small and medium-sized sellers will be further squeezed, and the wave of elimination may accelerate.
2. Leading factories: Opportunities outweigh challenges. Bind the platform to make stable money
For leading factories such as Bosideng and Youngor, Xinpinmu is a major opportunity.
In the past, factories supplied goods to multiple platforms, with weak bargaining power and thin profits; now Xinpinmu directly buys out underwriting and customizes production. The factory does not have to worry about orders or inventory risks. It only needs to focus on production, with guaranteed settlement and sales rebates.
At the same time, the platform provides full-link support from design, quality control, and overseas marketing to help factories build their own brands, get rid of their “OEM” status, and increase their added value.
However, Xinpinmu has extremely high requirements for factories, which require a complete supply chain, independent design capabilities and export qualifications. It is difficult for small and medium-sized factories to enter the industry, and industry resources will be concentrated at the top at an accelerated pace.
3. Competitors: pressure increases sharply and the pattern is restructured
For cross-border players such as SHEIN and Amazon, the entry of Xinpinmu has a huge impact.
SHEIN focuses on fast fashion at low prices. Xinpinmu relies on Pinduoduo’s supply chain advantages and hundreds of billions of funds to not lag behind in cost performance, and also focuses on branding, with more guaranteed quality. Although Amazon is strong in self-operation, the response speed and cost control of China’s supply chain are not as fast as Pinduoduo. Xinpinmu is expected to seize the mid-to-high-end market share.
It is foreseeable that in the future, cross-border e-commerce will form a three-legged pattern of “Pinduoduo New Pinmu + Temu”, SHEIN, and Amazon. Small and medium-sized platforms will either be eliminated or acquired, and industry concentration will increase significantly.
4. What is the road ahead for New Pinmu?
Challenges and opportunities coexist
With hundreds of billions of bets, Xinpinmu seems to be menacing, but the road ahead is not easy and the challenges cannot be ignored.
1. Profitability problem: short-term money burning, long profit cycle
The self-operated model is heavy on investment and has a long cycle. Xinpinmu invested 100 billion in three years. It has to bear huge costs in R&D, production, warehousing, logistics, marketing, etc. in the early stage, making it difficult to make profits in the short term.
Referring to JD.com’s self-operated business, which suffered losses for many years before achieving profitability, Xinpinmu may face the same dilemma. Whether it can sustain losses for a long time will test Pinduoduo’s patience and financial strength.
2. Brand cultivation: Starting from scratch, it is difficult to acquire customers and establish trust
Brand competition in the European and American markets is fierce. As a brand new brand, Xinpinmu has no reputation and low consumer trust.
How to quickly open the market, attract users, and build brand awareness is a huge challenge.
In contrast, SHEIN has been deeply involved in Europe and the United States for many years and has accumulated a large number of loyal users. Amazon is a global e-commerce giant with deep brand barriers.
3. Compliance risks: European and American regulations have become stricter, and trade frictions have intensified
In recent years, European and American regulations on China’s cross-border e-commerce have become increasingly strict, and compliance risks such as tariff barriers, intellectual property rights, and data security have increased sharply.
Xinpinmu focuses on products made in China and exports to Europe and the United States on a large scale. It is easily targeted by trade protectionism and will be hit hard if it encounters high tariffs or sanctions.
However, the opportunities are equally significant.
China has the most complete supply chain system in the world. The industrial belt has sufficient production capacity and high cost performance. Xinpinmu is deeply tied to the source factory, which can quickly respond to market demand and control costs.
At the same time, the degree of branding of European and American e-commerce is low, and there are many gaps in subdivided categories. Xinpinmu focuses on the three major tracks of clothing, home furnishing, and outdoor, accurately cuts into the gaps, and is expected to quickly occupy the market.
5. In the new era of cross-border e-commerce, who will have the last laugh?
Pinduoduo’s 100-billion-dollar bet on New Pinmu is not a simple business expansion, but a disruptive change in the cross-border e-commerce model—from “traffic-driven” to “supply chain + brand-driven” and from “low-price involution” to “value competition.”
For the industry, this is a big reshuffle: small and medium-sized sellers will either transform and upgrade or be eliminated; leading factories will usher in a golden period of development; competitors are facing tremendous pressure, and restructuring of the pattern is inevitable.
For Chinese manufacturing, Xinpinmu is an important opportunity for brands to go overseas, and is expected to lead Chinese industries to get rid of the “low-end OEM” label and move towards the high end of the global value chain.
Of course, whether Xinpinmu can succeed still needs time to test.
But what is certain is that the old era of cross-border e-commerce has come to an end, and the curtain of a new era is slowly opening.
In the future, only players that delve into the supply chain, build core brands, and adhere to the bottom line of compliance will have the last laugh in this changing situation.
