Pinduoduo, China’s Facebook-Groupon Mashup, Files for $1B US IPO
Pinduoduo, one of China’s largest e-commerce unicorns, looks to raise around US$1 billion in its U.S. initial public offering (IPO), confirming a report published earlier by Pandaily.
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The three-year-old company, under the name of Walnut Street Group Holding Limited, saw its revenue more than tripled to US$278 million in 2017 from around US$79 million in 2016, according to its filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this week.
![Pinduoduo revenues from online marketplace services and merchandise sales.](https://pandaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/pinduoduo-revenues.png)
The Shanghai-based company founded by former Google engineer Colin Huang targets lower-income consumers in China’s vast low-tired cities. Branding itself as “Inaugurator of New E-commerce,” the company integrates social media with online shopping by allowing consumers to invite their friends to buy products together at a discount – up to 20% cheaper.
In the first quarter this year, its revenue jumped to US$220.7 million, compared with the US$5.9 million revenue from the same period in 2017.
![the steps to complete a team purchase on Pinduoduo.](https://pandaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/The-chart-and-screenshot-below-illustrate-the-steps-to-complete-a-team-purchase-on-our-platform-and-the-key-features-of-our-team-purchase-option.jpg)
Pinduoduo said it has 300 million active buyers and one million merchants. In 2017, the number of transactions generated by its users on its mobile platform – excluding inflows from its website and other channels – reached 4.3 billion, while in the first quarter this year the number maintained a high level at 1.7 billion.
![the key features of Pinduoduo team purchase option](https://pandaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/g796737.jpg)
Backed by Tencent Holding Ltd., the company benefits from the large WeChat user base where people share shopping deals on Pinduoduo and invite their friends to participate in the Groupon-like purchases.
Though valued at about $15 billion in April after raising more than $1 billion according to Bloomberg, Pinduoduo reported losses of $79.5 million last year and $44.9 million from January to March this year.