May 22,$PDD Holdings (PDD.US)$The 2024 quarterly report was released. Affected by performance that exceeded expectations, the company's US stock price soared in early trading. It rose more than 7% to $157 per share before the market, but after opening, it recovered most of the gains. By the close of May 22 EST, Pinduoduo reported $147.09 per share, up 1.13%, with a total market value of US$204.3 billion.
Revenue and net profit both exceeded market expectations
According to the performance report, Pinduoduo achieved revenue of 86.812 billion yuan (about 12 billion US dollars) in the first quarter of 2024, an increase of 131%. Bloomberg analysts had previously estimated that it was 76.86 billion yuan; adjusted net profit was 30.602 billion yuan (about 4.2 billion US dollars), up 202% year on year. The previous estimate was 15.53 billion yuan, all exceeding market expectations, especially net profit, which was close to double previous market expectations.
Revenue growth was mainly due to increased revenue from online marketing services and transactional services. Among them, revenue from online marketing services and other services in the first quarter was 42,456 billion yuan, up 56% year on year. Since this revenue was already on a high base last year, the market gave it higher than 40% expectations, and actual growth surpassed expectations by a large margin; revenue from trading services was 44.356 billion yuan, an increase of 327% year on year. Previously, Goldman Sachs expected its combined transactional revenue of 44.8 billion yuan, which is generally in line with the actual situation.
In recent years, Pinduoduo's domestic market has surplus production capacity compared to demand, and the global consumer market has given the company the ultimate room for imagination.
According to information, Pinduoduo officially launched the cross-border e-commerce platform Temu on September 1, 2022. Since then, the platform has grown into an important growth curve for the company in less than two years since its launch. The HSBC survey estimates that in 2023, the Temu segment's revenue will account for 23% of the company's total revenue. This figure will increase to 43% this year, and is expected to exceed 50% in 2025. By 2027, its GMV will grow by $140 billion.
In this report, Pinduoduo did not disclose detailed data about Temu.
Regarding the cross-border e-commerce business, Chen Lei, chairman and co-CEO of Pinduoduo, said in an analyst conference call after the financial report was released that the global business is still being explored, and there is still a lot of room for improvement. During the tough battle, we will not pay too much attention to Pinduoduo's short-term cross-border growth. Instead, we need to practice our internal skills, consolidate the foundation, and strengthen the three capabilities of supply chain, compliance, and service.
Investors are becoming more and more “insensitive” to financial reports that exceed expectations
Although Pinduoduo took back most of its gains on May 22, Pinduoduo's market capitalization still surpassed Alibaba due to the falling stock price of Alibaba (BABA), another internet e-commerce giant on the same day. As of May 22, EST, Alibaba fell 4.01% to close at $82.68 per share, with a total market value of US$2012 billion.
This is not the first time that Pinduoduo has surpassed Alibaba in terms of market capitalization. On November 28, 2023, the company released its results report for the third quarter of 2023, achieving revenue of 68.84 billion yuan, an increase of 93.9% over the previous year. After the financial report was released, Pinduoduo's stock price surged 18% due to financial results that exceeded expectations. Many media used the term “explosion” to describe this financial report. 10 minutes after opening the next day, Pinduoduo continued the previous day's trend of rising 3.7%, reaching an intraday market value of 191,429 billion US dollars. For the first time, it surpassed Alibaba in terms of market value. At the time, Alibaba's stock price fell 1.9%, and the market value was 191.74 billion US dollars.
By the close of the day, Pinduoduo's increase had narrowed to 1.96%, with a market capitalization of US$188.3 billion, while Alibaba fell 2.68% to a market capitalization of US$190.2 billion, regaining first place. However, for Pinduoduo, which has only been in business for 9 years, being able to compete with Alibaba for superiority is an unimaginable result.
Although Pinduoduo surpassed Alibaba and JD by a large margin in 2023, its overall performance since the beginning of 2024 has fallen short of the latter two. As of May 21, Alibaba's American Depositary Receipts have risen 11% this year, and JD's Depositary Receipts have risen 15%. In contrast, Pinduoduo's American Depositary Receipts fell 0.6% per share.
In the market where stock market has generally been sluggish in recent years, Pinduoduo has always been a “different kind”. Business performance has always been growing rapidly, and almost every financial report far exceeds market expectations. However, after the release of many financial reports that exceeded expectations, investors' expectations also began to rise, and the “insensitivity” that the financial report exceeded expectations was increasing. This may also be one of the reasons why Pinduoduo's stock price performance in 2024 was relatively lackluster.
In addition to this, some investors have also begun to express doubts about whether Pinduoduo's strong profits can continue. Almost every time, it can perform far beyond market expectations. It is difficult to explain it by simply using the phrase “the king of consumption downgrade.” What's more, Alibaba and JD have also come up with their own solutions under Pinduoduo's challenges, making e-commerce competition more and more intense.
An article published by “Barron's” on May 15 also mentioned that in the face of fierce competition from cheap competitors such as Pinduoduo, Alibaba will strive to attract consumers at competitive prices in order to increase profit margins, and use data to prove that this can be done in its quarterly report.
In response to the situation where all e-commerce platforms have adjusted their prices and service systems this year, Chen Lei pointed out in a conference call that Pinduoduo sees that his peers have clearly increased their investment and welcomes healthy competition. Facing competition, the company's starting point is to create value for consumers. Looking forward to the future, it will take time to answer whether Pinduoduo can secure the position of “E-Commerce's Big Brother”.
Editor/Jeffrey