China's e-commerce platform Pinduoduo reports 130% revenue surge in 2019

SHANGHAI - China's fast-growing online group discounter Pinduoduo Inc on Wednesday unveiled its unaudited 2019 financial results, posting a robust growth in total revenue which amounted to 30.14 billion yuan ($4.34 billion), up 130 percent year-on-year.

The e-commerce platform's gross merchandise volume (GMV) in the 12-month period ended Dec 31 was 1.01 trillion yuan, representing an increase of 113 percent from that of the previous year.

"2019 was an important, formative year for Pinduoduo, a year in which we built up our capabilities and offerings and surpassed 1 trillion yuan in GMV for the first time," said Huang Zheng, chairman and CEO of the company.

In the fourth quarter of 2019, the Nasdaq-listed company saw a narrower operating loss of 2.14 billion yuan, compared to 2.79 billion yuan in the previous quarter and 2.64 billion yuan in the fourth quarter of 2018.

Its active buyers in the same period expanded by 40 percent year-on-year to reach 585.2 million, with annual spending per active buyer growing to 1,720.1 yuan from 1,126.9 yuan in the previous year.

Pinduoduo had maintained its leading position in annual growth rate and absolute net increase of active buyers among the three major e-commerce platforms. The company saw 48.9 million new active buyers in the fourth quarter of 2019, compared with Alibaba's 18 million and JD.com's 27.6 million during the same period.

"Since the coronavirus outbreak, we have directed the resources of our ecosystem to support frontline relief efforts, stabilize prices of necessities and help with the recovery of our merchants and business partners," Huang said.

Long-term expectations will remain unchanged though the company expects a virus-impacted performance in the first quarter of 2020, he added, noting that business operations and logistics have been rebooted and are gradually returning to normal.

Founded in 2015, Pinduoduo is known for offering bulk purchase deals with big discounts and enjoys a huge consumer base in rural areas and small cities.