Produced by Radar Finance Text | Xiao Sa Editor | Deep Sea On June 12, the "2024 New Fortune 500 List" was released, and it was time for billionaires to show off their wealth. In the position of the richest man, no one can shake the position of Zhong Suisui, the founder of N

Produced by Radar Finance Text | Edited by Xiao Sa | Deep Sea

's position as the richest man has yet to be shaken by Zhong Suisui, the founder of Nongfu Spring. With a stock market value of 456.27 billion yuan, he continues to top the New Fortune 500 list. The

list shows that Huang Zheng, the 44-year-old founder of Pinduoduo, ranks second on the list with a wealth of 424.85 billion yuan. There is only a difference of 31.42 billion yuan in net worth between Zhong Suisui and Zhong Suisui, making him the biggest threat to the latter's richest man. .

Huang Zheng is only one step away from becoming the richest man in China, which cannot be separated from Pinduoduo’s good performance in the capital market in the past two years. Market data shows that from 2022, 2023 and 2024 to June 13, Pinduoduo will increase by approximately 40%, 80% and 3% respectively. In contrast, Alibaba and JD.com’s US stocks will both decline in 2022 and 2023. state.

The skyrocketing share price of Pinduoduo has also made Huang Zheng the "fastest earner" on China's rich list in the past few years. In the 2018 New Fortune 500 list, Huang Zheng's wealth is only 6.7 billion yuan, ranking 483rd. In six years, Huang Zheng's wealth increased by more than 410 billion yuan.

In fact, as early as July 1, 2020, Huang Zheng announced his resignation as Pinduoduo CEO and donated shares: 2.37% of the shares were donated to establish the Fanxing Charity Fund, and 7.74% of the shares were given to the Pinduoduo partner collective. This caused Huang Zheng’s shareholding in Pinduoduo to drop significantly from 43.4% to 29.4%.

I don’t know whether he did it intentionally or simply didn’t care, but he cleverly avoided becoming the richest man in China. But now, judging from Pinduoduo’s momentum, it seems to be only a matter of time before this post-80s generation becomes China’s new richest man.

donated shares to retire and "let" the wealth of the richest man

There is no shortage of new kings in the world.

The time is set back to 2020. At that time, Pinduoduo was not yet profitable, but the company's previous continuous doubling of growth (the revenue growth rate dropped to 97.37% in 2020) gave capital a reason to pursue it crazily, and the company's stock price has been soaring.

Starting in March of that year, Pinduoduo’s stock price started at around US$30. By February of the following year, the company’s stock price hit a high of US$212.

Throughout 2020, Pinduoduo’s stock price increased by 370% during the year, becoming the first Chinese company in terms of market value growth. As of December 31, 2020, Pinduoduo’s market value exceeded US$200 billion.

Pinduoduo’s stock price has taken off, and one of the results is that its founder and major shareholder Huang Zheng’s ranking on major wealth lists continues to rise.

Specifically, in May 2020, Huang Zheng, whose worth soared by US$17.9 billion in two months, became the third richest man in China, second only to Ma Huateng and Jack Ma; on June 22, 2020, a historic moment occurred. The 40-year-old Huang Zheng surpassed Jack Ma to become the second richest man in China, with the gap between him and the richest man Ma Huateng narrowing to US$6.1 billion.

But just when he was one step away from becoming the richest man in China, Huang Zheng chose to "quit bravely" and donated part of his shares to cleverly avoid becoming the richest man in China.

On July 1, 2020, Huang Zheng announced his resignation as CEO of Pinduoduo and donated his shares: 2.37% of the shares were donated to establish the Fanxing Charity Fund, and 7.74% of the shares were given to the Pinduoduo partner collective. This caused Huang Zheng’s shareholding in Pinduoduo to drop significantly from 43.4% to 29.4%.

You must know that at the close of the US stock market on July 1, Pinduoduo’s stock price was reported at US$85.45, corresponding to a total market value of US$102.337 billion. Based on this calculation, Huang Zheng "gave up" personal wealth of up to 100 billion yuan.

On March 17, 2021, Huang Zheng, who was in his prime, took a step back and resigned from his position as chairman and management of Pinduoduo. He said that he wanted to touch the rocks in the next ten years and would devote himself to basic research in the fields of food science and life sciences. .

From a fundamental perspective, 2020 will become a critical year for Pinduoduo, which was founded in 2015. At that time, the company was turning from perennial operating losses to profitability and at the same time initiated diversification.

On November 20, 2020, Pinduoduo released its financial report for the third quarter of 2020. The report showed that under non-GAAP, the net profit was 466.4 million yuan, and Pinduoduo achieved adjusted quarterly profit for the first time.

At the same time, in August, Pinduoduo launched “Duoduo Maicai” to increase community group buying and seize the traffic entrance to the sinking market; in December, Pinduoduo launched “Duoduo Wallet” to lay out its Internet financial business and increase the imagination of valuations.

In addition, Alibaba was at the center of the antitrust storm at the time, which indirectly benefited the stock prices of competitors such as Pinduoduo.

By the end of 2020, Pinduoduo’s annual active buyers reached 788.4 million, a year-on-year increase of 35% from 585.2 million at the end of the previous year. That year, the cumulative number of new active buyers exceeded 200 million, of which 57.1 million were added in the fourth quarter.

During the same period, Alibaba had 779 million active buyers and JD.com had 472 million active buyers. Since then, Pinduoduo has become China’s largest e-commerce platform.

Simple, the power of common sense

"Retired" for three years, Huang Zheng basically disappeared from the public eye. But given Pinduoduo’s current status in the e-commerce world, it’s hard not to mention this maverick entrepreneur’s name from time to time.

As we all know, Huang Zheng has the label of "student master" and has always been outstanding. Public information shows that Huang Zheng was born in an ordinary family in Hangzhou in 1980. His parents worked in a factory and did not have high academic qualifications.

But Huang Zheng is very good at learning. He entered Hangzhou Foreign Languages ​​School at the age of 12. In 1998, he was recommended to enter the mixed class of Zhejiang University (the predecessor of Zhu Kezhen College) to major in computer science - it is the most famous college of Zhejiang University. Entering this class means having a superior IQ.

In 2001, Huang Zheng, a junior in college, met the nobleman Ding Lei. The founder of NetEase approached Huang Zheng on MSN and hoped that he could help solve a technical problem. Because Ding Lei saw an article published by Huang Zheng on the Internet, he asked him for advice. At that time, Huang Zheng was selected into the training program cooperated by Zhejiang University and the Melton Foundation, and was entitled to a computer and free Internet access for one year.

Ding Lei once became the richest man in China. He introduced Huang Zheng to Duan Yongping, the founder of BBK. At that time, Duan Yongping had achieved financial freedom, had just obtained a U.S. green card, immigrated to the United States with his family, and also started his investment career. When

met Duan Yongping, Huang Zheng was already studying for a master's degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States. Later, under Duan's suggestion, Huang Zheng gave up the Microsoft offer, entered the rising Google, and obtained part of the shares.

In 2006, as Google's stock price rose, Huang Zheng's net worth reached millions of dollars, and he was sent to China to expand the market together with Kai-Fu Lee. However, the second year after returning to China, he resigned and started his own business. Pinduoduo is a project hatched from the gaming team in Huang Zheng’s eighth year of entrepreneurship.

It is worth mentioning that Duan Yongping is Huang Zheng’s senior fellow student at Zhejiang University, and is even called “life mentor” by Huang Zheng. After Duan Yongping spent US$620,100 to bid for the charity lunch of "Stock God" Buffett, he took Huang Zheng with him when he went to the banquet.

What did Huang Zheng learn from this sky-high price lunch that is difficult for ordinary people to understand? Many years later, he recalled in an interview that the greatest meaning of that meal to him may be to realize the power of simplicity and common sense. "Human thoughts are easily contaminated. After understanding, what is needed is not wisdom, but facing the facts." Do you still have the courage to use reason and common sense to judge?"

This way of thinking seems to have been given to the business he founded. Pinduoduo, which has been established for many years, has "low price" and "cheapness" engraved in its genes with its continuous tens of billions of subsidies.

Huang Zheng explained in an interview with Caijing in 2018, "We attract people who pursue high cost performance. He will buy a Hermès bag and a box of mangoes for 9.9 yuan. This is consistent with him. It doesn’t matter what the consumption power is. Traditional companies only use first-tier, second-tier, and third-tier people to classify people. Pinduoduo satisfies many aspects of a person. "

In other words, if you want to be affordable and buy good products at a low price, you will not waste your money. It’s almost a universal need. Everyone’s eternal pursuit of benefits is a simple, common-sense logic. Even people with huge wealth are no exception.

This pursuit of “cost-effectiveness” has long been summarized as consumption grading and consumption fairness by Zhang Zhen, an early investor in Pinduoduo and the founding partner of Gaorong Capital.

In contrast, at the same time, Alibaba CEO Zhang Yong said in an interview, "We can't go back to selling a pair of daily disposable shoes for 3.9 yuan and free shipping (this way). We have to believe in the whole Consumption is on the rise. "

Looking back, Ali and Zhang Yong in June 2018 only focused on consumption upgrades and selectively ignored consumption grading.

In addition, the game genes in Pinduoduo’s business model and the viral growth of users in marketing are unique in the e-commerce world.

Pinduoduo faces more fierce competition

Judging from the performance, it seems that Pinduoduo can only be described as "surge".

's business, revenue from online marketing services and other services was 42.456 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 56%. But more growth came from transaction services revenue, which was 44.356 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 327%.

In terms of profits, the net profit attributable to Pinduoduo’s common shareholders in the first quarter was 27.998 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 246%; not in accordance with U.S. GAAP, the net profit attributable to Pinduoduo’s common shareholders was 30.602 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase 202%.

At the same time, Pinduoduo’s costs are also growing rapidly. The company’s total revenue cost in the first quarter was 3.269 billion yuan, an increase of 194% over the same period in 2023.

Regarding the overseas business temu, which is of great concern to the outside world, Pinduoduo includes its income in the above-mentioned transaction service income, but does not provide details.

However, Pinduoduo’s current challenges come from increasingly fierce competition. In fact, the core focus on low prices has become a consensus in the e-commerce industry. Various e-commerce companies have come up with "low-price" weapons in an attempt to take the lead in the price war.

In the conference call after the financial report, Pinduoduo Chairman and Co-CEO Chen Lei said, "We saw that in the first quarter, peers significantly increased their investment. We welcome healthy competition."

Vice President of Finance Liu Jun It is also said that in the face of increasing industry competition, Pinduoduo’s focus has always been on providing more value to consumers and merchants. It is believed that these values ​​will ultimately be reflected in the company's financial performance.

In addition, a major risk for cross-border e-commerce is the uncertainty of regulatory policies in other countries, which also poses challenges to temu's global expansion plan.

In order to avoid risks in this regard, it is reported that temu hopes to reduce the proportion of U.S. product sales to about 30% in 2024. One way is to expand market share including Europe, the Middle East, Japan and South Korea. After the disclosure of

’s unexpected financial report, Pinduoduo’s market value once again surpassed Alibaba. As of pre-market on June 13, the latest market values ​​of the two companies were US$209.8 billion and US$183 billion respectively.

It is worth mentioning that the last time Pinduoduo’s market value surpassed Alibaba was on November 29 last year. Some Alibaba employees lamented on the intranet, "That humble guy will become the big brother with just one chop."

What other miracles will Pinduoduo create? Radar Finance will continue to pay attention.