Temu Store Owner Becomes World's Richest Chinese
Colin Huang (also known as Huang Zheng), founder of Chinese e-commerce startup Pinduoduo and owner of Temu, is the richest man in China, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
With a fortune of $48.6 billion, Huang overtook bottled water tycoon Zhong Shanshan, who had held the top spot since April 2021, according to media reports.
Last March, Colin Huang was already identified by the Hurun Report, known as the Chinese version of the American magazine Forbes, as the richest tech entrepreneur in China, thus surpassing Pony Ma, of Tencent, and Zhang Yiming, of ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok.
Huang founded Pinduoduo in 2015, an e-commerce platform known in the Asian country for its ultra-low prices and great promotions.
In 2022, Pinduoduo began its international expansion under the Temu brand, whose sales, according to local press, reached $20 billion in the first half of 2024, exceeding last year's total of about $18 billion.
Temu has rapidly expanded its presence to 75 countries since its launch in September 2022, competing against Chinese rivals like Shein, TikTok Shop or Alibaba's international subsidiary, AliExpress, and has become known for its ultra-low-priced product offerings.
Temu is currently facing scrutiny from EU or US authorities, who are considering imposing tariffs on this type of Chinese platform that sells at low prices.