Colin Huang, the founder of the company that owns Chinese shopping app Temu, got $4.3 billion richer after earnings smashed analysts’ expectations

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PDD Holdings, the Chinese shopping e-commerce giant behind the viral shopping app Temu reported glowing results on Tuesday — and that boosted the personal wealth of founder Colin Huang by $4.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Huang’s wealth surged after shares of PDD on the Nasdaq closed 15.4% higher. The company reported second-quarter revenues of 52.28 billion Chinese yuan, or $7.2 billion — smashing analysts’ average estimates of 43.7 billion yuan, per Refinitiv data.

Huang was worth $32.8 billion as of August 30, per Bloomberg, making him the 41st richest person in the world. The 43-year-old has seen his wealth soar by 14% this year thanks to the gains in PDD shares.

Huang stepped down as the company’s CEO in 2020 and as chairman in 2021 but still retains a 28% stake in PDD.

Born in the eastern province of Zhejiang, Huang worked as an engineer and project manager in Google’s US headquarters in 2004 after graduating with a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin. He returned to China in 2006 and was part of the founding team of Google China. 

Huang founded his first company — the e-commerce site Ouku.com — in 2007 and sold it in 2010 before starting Leqi, an e-commerce marketing firm.

However, he decided to retire in 2013 at the age of 33 after getting an ear infection. 

But the retirement didn’t last. Huang came up with the concept of PDD when he was recuperating. He launched the PDD app in May 2015 after raising $8 million from investors.

PDD went public in the US in July 2018, but was little known in the country until the viral adoption of Temu, which was launched in the US last September.

Known for selling products at rock-bottom prices from sellers predominantly based in China, Temu has been downloaded 50 million times in just seven months between September 2022 and March 2023. Shein’s, the fast-fashion retailer, took three years to reach the milestone, according to Apptopia, a research firm.

PDD’s second-quarter earnings did not break out Temu’s revenue. Executives said at an earnings call on Tuesday that the Temu app — which is now available in 39 countries worldwide — is in the early stages of learning about its new international markets.

In 2022, PDD had 751 million monthly active users and reported revenues of 131 billion yuan.

PDD shares on the Nasdaq closed 15.4% higher at $93.22 apiece. 

PDD and Huang did not immediately respond to a request from Insider for comment that was sent outside regular business hours.