At a time when e-commerce giants are increasing their instant retail and takeaway businesses, Pinduoduo seems to be facing new challenges and opportunities. This article provides an in-depth analysis of why Pinduoduo needs a “takeaway” narrative to rebuild market confidence under multiple difficulties such as the lack of national subsidy policy dividends, intensified market competition, and the aging of its own team.
Those who have not eaten the national subsidy dividend are not only Pinduoduo platform.
According to the statistics of “Lei Feng.com”, as of January 8, 2025, JD.com’s “national subsidy” covers 28 provinces and cities, Taotian covers 23 provinces and cities, Pinduoduo covers 7 provinces and cities, and Douyin e-commerce covers 6 provinces and cities. In terms of Kuaishou, Li Hao, general manager of its consumer home furnishing industry, revealed in an interview that by the end of 2024, a total of 19 provinces and cities across the country will launch national subsidy trade-in activities on Kuaishou.
Only the coverage of national subsidies roughly reflects the ability and depth of the platform to obtain policy dividends: JD.com> Taobao> Kuaishou> Pinduoduo> Douyin.Obviously, compared with the accumulation of old e-commerce, the other three new e-commerce forces have been more or less affected by national subsidies.
Taking Kuaishou, which ranks third, as an example, despite receiving some dividends, the Q1 2025 financial report is still under pressure: revenue increased by 10.9% year-on-year to 32.6 billion yuan, but net profit fell by 3.4% year-on-year to 3.98 billion yuan, and adjusted net profit only increased by 4.5% year-on-year, and declined month-on-month.
This slowdown in growth, in the absence of more policy stimulus, should have caused market concern. However, Kuaishou told an AI story, which was recognized by the capital market after the launch of “Keling”: the stock price opened 6.46% higher the day after the earnings report, JPMorgan Chase gave it an “overweight” rating, with a target price of HK$70, and CICC maintained an “outperform the industry” rating.
Stories and expectations are key. Looking at Pinduoduo, although it has also failed to fully catch the national subsidy express, the problem is obviously deeper. Its Q1 revenue in 2025 was 95.672 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.21%; net profit attributable to the parent company was 14.742 billion yuan, down 47.35% year-on-year, and the overall growth fell to the lowest in three years.
In this regard, Pinduoduo emphasized the subsidy strategy, and co-CEO Chen Lei said, “We don’t pay much attention to the financial performance of a single quarter.” But the market did not buy it: the stock price fell more than 20% pre-market on the day of the earnings report. As of May 31, the stock price fell to $96.51, down about 27% from the year’s high of $131.52.
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In contrast, platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou have not fully benefited from national subsidies, but Pinduoduo has been hit harder. What really disappointed the capital market may not be the lack of policy dividends, but that it did not tell a new story that can support the imagination of the future.
After all, Internet capital has never been afraid of burning money, but is the beneficiary of the subsidy style.Judging from the two recent research reports, the gold content of institutions for the commercial value of the takeaway war is still increasing.
On the one hand, the milk tea industry has benefited from takeaway subsidies, and Goldman Sachs released a research report saying that since JD.com announced a 10 billion yuan takeaway subsidy plan on April 11, with Ele.me and Meituan increasing subsidies, the stock prices of ready-to-drink companies covered by the bank have risen by an average of 39%.
Therefore, benefiting from the subsidy program of food delivery platforms such as JD.com and Meituan, the target price of Mixue Bingcheng has been raised from HK$484 to HK$597, and the target price of Gu Ming has been raised.
On the other hand, Nomura released a research report saying that the takeaway business has promoted the increase in user participation on JD.com’s application.
Among them, the total usage time of JD.com applications surged by 56% year-on-year in April, much higher than the 26% in March. This increase was mainly driven by a 27% increase in the number of daily active users (DAU) and a 22% increase in the average daily usage time per DAU.
Obviously, today, platforms that can tell the “new subsidy story” are more likely to win sustained capital support. From this point of view, Pinduoduo, which misses the AI narrative, may need to tell a new “takeaway” story.
01 The two CEOs admit that the team is aging
The national subsidies that takeaway platforms have begun to exert their efforts are still plaguing Pinduoduo.
In the latest quarterly earnings call, Pinduoduo CEO Chen Lei said that as a third-party platform, Pinduoduo naturally has restrictions on transmitting policy preferences to consumers, putting the platform’s merchants at a significant disadvantage compared to competitors with self-operated businesses. At the same time, he further admitted that although this issue was raised last year, the challenge still exists due to the limitations of the team’s capabilities.
This is less than half a year since the last response to the national subsidy issue. When the third-quarter earnings report was released in November last year, Pinduoduo’s co-CEO Zhao Jiazhen also reflected on the team problem in the earnings call, thus missing the opportunity of “national subsidy”.
At that time, in the earnings conference, he emphasized that in response to certain changes, the gradual aging of Pinduoduo’s team and the lack of its own capabilities may lead to Pinduoduo missing some macro opportunities. The team is limited by the historical capabilities of third-party platform operations and has not fully grasped the dividends of these macro policies.
While both CEOs recognized the problem of the lack of national subsidies, they also pointed out that policy opportunities were missed due to the gradual aging of the Pinduoduo team and their own capabilities. Previously, Pinduoduo has always been known for its high human efficiency, but in the face of the problem of national subsidies, both CEOs pointed out that the team is aging.
Team aging and human efficiency are not in conflict, and some industry insiders have pointed out that when ordinary employees focus on efficiency, then Pinduoduo’s direction often pins its hopes on the group’s management.Judging from external market actions, Pinduoduo has indeed been deeply cultivating the three comfort zones of tens of billions of subsidies, social fission, and industrial belt assistance to farmers in the past year.
Although efforts have also been made in other aspects, such as optimizing refund-only refunds, expanding free shipping coverage, and merchant support, it is more to follow the general trend of the industry rather than innovation leading. When the advancement of industry norms exceeds the platform’s own strategy adjustment, Pinduoduo gradually degenerates from a dominant player to a passive follower.
Therefore, in addition to the “national subsidy”, another question that affects the judgment of market investors is: Can Pinduoduo still fight?This year, Alibaba proved the ability of organizational evolution with AI narratives, and JD.com demonstrated the founder’s willpower by opening takeaways. Obviously, Pinduoduo also needs a new “battlefield” to re-prove its combat effectiveness.
In the past, this battlefield was dominated by Temu-led e-commerce going overseas. However, when encountering a high degree of uncertainty that is not transferred by human will, Pinduoduo urgently needs a more controllable battlefield that relies more on internal organizational strength and execution efficiency. And takeaway may be the best training ground for Pinduoduo to verify “whether it can still fight”.
02 The takeaway war “threatens” Pinduoduo
In addition to rebuilding morale, according to the Business Observer, some market participants believe that Pinduoduo may try to do instant retail business in the future.Some mainstream players in the instant retail field believe: “I doubt Pinduoduo will do it, but I don’t know when and how Pinduoduo will do it.” ”
“It may be looking at the reaction of Alibaba and JD.com. Overall, I think at least in 2025, Pinduoduo will not do instant retail, and Temu is more important this year. If you want to do it, at least after next year. “But Alibaba and JD.com have verified that the best incision for instant retail is takeaway.
Although instant retail has not yet directly competed with Pinduoduo’s e-commerce niche, commercial competition will retreat if it does not advance. Under the market space of trillions of instant retail, JD.com, Alibaba and Meituan will inevitably squeeze Pinduoduo’s market share. From this business perspective, exploring takeaway is also paving the way for instant retail business.
Not only that, judging from the effect of JD.com and Alibaba’s entry into the takeaway this time, at least in the short term, takeaway has a good effect on increasing the number of orders and the frequency of users opening apps. The latest data from JD.com shows that the current daily order volume has reached 25 million, and Taobao flash sale data shows that the daily order volume has also exceeded 40 million.
To a certain extent, although these businesses were benchmarked against Meituan at the beginning, the effectiveness of improving the traffic of the main site and the frequency of user openings also made it form actual competitive pressure on Pinduoduo.
More importantly, compared with the previous “10 billion subsidies” play, this round of takeaway + instant retail combination is establishing a new competitive paradigm.
In the past, when JD.com and Taobao tried to subsidize in the sinking market, they also emphasized the priority of order volume rather than GMV, but it has always been difficult to effectively shake Pinduoduo’s basic market. And now, they have seized a new opportunity through “subsidy + high-frequency” takeaway, and Pinduoduo obviously cannot ignore this signal.
Looking back at the changes in the e-commerce landscape, the first thing that started was the signal of traffic migration.
During the Alibaba JD.com period, it was from Baidu’s external link traffic to Taobao JD.com’s own website; During the Pinduoduo period, it was to use WeChat’s social traffic to reach the sinking market that Alibaba JD.com had been difficult to meet for a long time; During the Douyin Kuaishou period, the traffic of short video content eroded the market of shelf e-commerce.
If the previous old rivals, Alibaba JD.com relied on the takeaway business to find a new set of gameplay, then Pinduoduo, which has not entered the game for a long time, will not only miss the potential market of instant retail, but may also be marginalized in the e-commerce pattern.
03 Pursue the next high-frequency traffic entrance
The business rhythm of e-commerce platforms depends on traffic in the early stage, after-sales in the medium term, and supply chain in the long term. Pinduoduo’s emphasis on “100 billion yuan to support small and medium-sized businesses” in the earnings call does reflect its long-term strategy. But the premise of everything is still the sustainability of the traffic entrance.
Taking ChatGPT as an example, after obtaining the biggest dividends of the AI track, it has also launched e-commerce functions, which are essentially changes in the e-commerce ecosystem brought about by the transfer of traffic entrances.
Looking back at Pinduoduo’s traffic acquisition capabilities, it is always highly flexible. In the early stage, fresh fruits ran through WeChat community traffic, and in the middle period, the app became independent with red envelope fission, and in the later stage, it was launched to buy more groceries. After that, the domestic market was mainly stable, and more energy was invested in the growth of overseas markets.
A typical case is the role change of Zhao Jiazhen, co-CEO of Pinduoduo: he was once the main force of Duoduo’s grocery shopping and opening the city, and later turned to Temu’s investment promotion work, representing Pinduoduo’s heavy investment in overseas markets in the phased strategy. However, as the international environment changes, this rhythm may also need to be readjusted.
According to “LatePost”, while Zhao Jiazhen is in charge of Temu, he has also led the team to promote Duoduo’s local life business.
The project was originally scheduled to be launched nationwide after the Spring Festival in 2024, but it was suddenly stopped at the end of 2023, and Pinduoduo officially said in early 2024 that “the local life business has been completely stopped”.Despite pressing the pause button, considering that Pinduoduo has always emphasized “duty” and often focuses on one thing at a specific stage, this may mean that the time has not come, rather than giving up completely.
Now, the uncertainty of overseas growth is no longer under the control of enterprises unilaterally, and it may also be an opportunity to restart local life. Compared with Douyin and Kuaishou, Pinduoduo has launched the “Duoduo Grocery Shopping” door-to-door delivery service, and has regained the station operation qualification, and is expanding community stations on a large scale across the country.
Industry insiders pointed out: “Although Pinduoduo’s station system is not as good as professional players such as Meituan, JD.com, and Taobao in terms of home performance ability, it has obvious advantages compared with Douyin and Kuaishou, which may be a trump card for its follow-up layout.” ”
At present, Pinduoduo urgently needs a new high-frequency traffic entrance. Until then, it was not sluggish in capturing new traffic channels. Although it did not fully follow up on content e-commerce, its main short video portal “Duoduo Video” has exceeded 150 million DAU at the beginning of 2023, surpassing Xiaohongshu at that time, and the average daily time of users is close to that of WeChat video accounts.
Behind this data is Pinduoduo’s precise control of subsidy efficiency. In 2022, its total subsidy for “Duoduo Video” will be nearly 1 billion yuan, of which 3-400 million yuan will be invested in the second quarter, and the DAU will increase from 100 million to 120 million, the subsidy will shrink in the third quarter, and the DAU will drop to 90 million, and the DAU will increase again during the Double 11 period, and the peak DAU will exceed 150 million.
Therefore, when local life, especially the high-frequency business represented by takeaway, is verified as the focus of the next round of competition, for Pinduoduo, the real question is not “whether to do it”, but “when to restart”.
After all, compared with long-term support of 100 billion yuan, the market also needs a short-term subsidy narrative to revitalize Pinduoduo’s confidence.
