Temu has no shares of its own. The shopping app, which serves buyers from the US and the UK to Germany and Japan, belongs to PDD Holdings Inc., a company incorporated in the Cayman Islands, listed on Nasdaq, run from an office in Dublin and built on Pinduoduo, one of China’s largest shopping apps. Who owns Temu, then, depends on how far up the chain you look. This guide follows that chain using PDD’s own annual report on Form 20-F for 2025, filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on 29 April 2026, and explains why the structure matters to regulators and to brands.
Short answer: Temu is owned by PDD Holdings Inc., a Cayman Islands company listed on Nasdaq with its principal executive offices in Dublin. Its largest shareholder is founder Colin Huang, whose entities held 24.8% of PDD’s shares as of 18 March 2026. Tencent held 13.8%. The company is run by co-chairmen and co-chief executives Lei Chen and Jiazhen Zhao.
Key takeaways
- Temu is operated by PDD subsidiaries: Whaleco Inc., a Delaware company, in the US and Whaleco Technology Limited, an Irish company, for Europe. Both were set up in 2022.
- PDD Holdings started life in April 2015 as Walnut Street Group Holding Limited, became Pinduoduo Inc. in July 2018 and was renamed PDD Holdings in February 2023.
- Colin Huang founded the business but left the CEO role in 2020 and the board in 2021. He remains the biggest shareholder through companies held in a trust.
- Temu has been fined €200 million under the EU’s Digital Services Act, paid a $2 million US federal penalty and settled a Texas lawsuit for $3 million, while other state cases continue.
Who owns Temu?
PDD Holdings does. Its 20-F describes Temu as “our Temu mobile app and website” and says Temu was founded in Boston in September 2022, launched in North America that month, reached Oceania in March 2023 and Europe in April 2023. The filing also explains how the business is held: in 2022 PDD incorporated Whaleco Technology Limited under Irish law and Whaleco Inc. under Delaware law. US state lawsuits, such as the one Texas filed in February 2026, name PDD Holdings and Whaleco Inc. as defendants, while the Irish company is Temu’s operating base for Europe.
PDD Holdings itself is a public company. Its American depositary shares trade on Nasdaq under the ticker PDD, each one representing four Class A ordinary shares. As of 18 March 2026, the company had 5,693,585,848 Class A shares and no Class B shares in issue. About 54.8% of them were held on record by Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, the depositary for the ADS programme, on behalf of investors who own the Nasdaq-traded shares.
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Who are PDD Holdings’ biggest shareholders?
The 2025 annual report names three holders above 5%.
| Shareholder | Shares (Class A) | Stake | How the shares are held |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entities affiliated with Zheng (Colin) Huang | 1,409,744,080 | 24.8% | Walnut Street Investment, Ltd. and Walnut Street Management, Ltd. (British Virgin Islands), controlled by Steam Water Limited and held through a trust for Huang and his family |
| Entities affiliated with Tencent | 783,468,116 | 13.8% | Mainly Tencent Mobility Limited, a Hong Kong company |
| Entities affiliated with the PDD Partnership | 370,772,220 | 6.5% | Quantum Dot Limited and Qubit Partners L.P.; Huang is the sole director of Quantum Dot and of the partnership’s general partner |
| All directors and executive officers as a group | 50,737,152 | 0.9% | Including 28,320,000 shares held by Lei Chen and 6,160,380 by Jiazhen Zhao |
So Huang is still the single largest owner, with roughly a quarter of the company, while the managers who run it day to day own less than 1% between them. Tencent, which owns the Weixin messaging app and has worked with Pinduoduo since 2018, is the second biggest holder and is described in the filing as one of PDD’s principal shareholders.
Who is Colin Huang and does he still control PDD?
Colin Huang, whose legal name in SEC filings is Zheng Huang, is a former Google engineer who founded Pinduoduo in 2015. The company listed on Nasdaq in July 2018. He handed the chief executive role to Lei Chen in July 2020 and in March 2021 stepped down as chairman and left the board to pursue research in food and life sciences. At the time, CNBC reported that he had entrusted the board to exercise his shareholder voting rights, that the ten-votes-per-share rights attached to his shares had been removed and that he had pledged not to sell for three years.
The 2025 20-F confirms that PDD now has a single class of ordinary shares, so Huang’s stake no longer carries extra votes. He is not a director or officer. His influence today comes from the size of his holding and from his role as sole director of the companies that hold the PDD Partnership’s shares. The partnership is a management body designed, once it has at least five limited partners, to nominate executive directors and the chief executive. The filing says it currently has fewer than five, so those rights are not yet in effect.
Who runs Temu and PDD day to day?
Two founding members. Lei Chen, a computer scientist trained at Tsinghua University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was Pinduoduo’s chief technology officer from 2016 to 2020, chief executive from July 2020 to April 2023, and chairman from March 2021 to December 2025. Jiazhen Zhao, who started the Duo Duo Grocery business and led the supply chain, became a director and co-chief executive in April 2023. Since December 2025, the two have shared both titles as co-chairmen and co-chief executives. The board also includes independent directors Anthony Kam Ping Leung, Ivonne Rietjens and George Yeo, Singapore’s former foreign minister.
Why is PDD registered in the Cayman Islands with an office in Dublin?
Each layer has a purpose. The Cayman Islands holding company, first called Walnut Street Group Holding Limited, was set up in April 2015 to raise international financing, which is a common structure for Chinese technology groups listing in the US. Its registered office is still in Grand Cayman. In February 2023 the company changed its name from Pinduoduo Inc. to PDD Holdings, and its annual report filed in late April 2023 listed Dublin as its principal executive offices for the first time, replacing Shanghai, as TechCrunch reported. The current address is First Floor, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2.
The Dublin address does not mean the business left China. Pinduoduo still operates in China, and the 20-F explains that PDD runs much of its Chinese mainland business through a variable interest entity, Hangzhou Aimi, in which it has no equity. Hangzhou Aimi is 86.6% owned by Lei Chen and 13.4% by Jiazhen Zhao, and is controlled through contracts with a PDD subsidiary because Chinese law restricts foreign ownership of some internet businesses. That entity’s share of group revenue has fallen fast as Temu has grown: 45.7% in 2023, 22.5% in 2024 and 13.1% in 2025. The filing also devotes a full section of risk factors to doing business in China.
| Entity | Where incorporated | Role |
|---|---|---|
| PDD Holdings Inc. | Cayman Islands | Listed parent company, principal executive offices in Dublin |
| Whaleco Inc. | Delaware, US | Operates Temu for US users |
| Whaleco Technology Limited | Ireland | Temu’s EU operator, supervised under the Digital Services Act |
| Hangzhou Weimi | Chinese mainland | Wholly owned subsidiary that controls the VIE by contract |
| Hangzhou Aimi (the VIE) | Chinese mainland | Operates parts of the Pinduoduo business; owned by Lei Chen and Jiazhen Zhao |
How big is PDD Holdings?
For 2025, PDD reported total revenues of RMB431.8 billion (about US$61.8 billion) and net income of RMB97.8 billion (about US$14.0 billion). Revenue comes from two lines: online marketing services, meaning the fees merchants pay to promote listings, and transaction services. Each was roughly half of the total. Revenue grew from RMB247.6 billion in 2023, the first full year with Temu.
What regulatory problems does Temu face in the US and EU?
In the EU, Temu was designated a very large online platform under the Digital Services Act in May 2024. The Commission opened formal proceedings in October 2024, issued preliminary findings in July 2025 and on 28 May 2026 fined Temu €200 million for failing to properly assess the risk of illegal products on its marketplace. FLJ explains why clothing was part of that case in The EU Just Fined Temu €200 Million. Separately, the network of national consumer authorities told Temu in November 2024 that several of its practices broke EU consumer law.
In the US, the Justice Department, on referral from the Federal Trade Commission, sued Whaleco Inc. in Massachusetts in September 2025 in the first case under the INFORM Consumers Act, alleging Temu did not properly disclose information about high-volume third-party sellers or offer the required ways to report suspicious activity. Without admitting the allegations, Temu agreed to a $2 million civil penalty and ongoing compliance obligations. State attorneys general in Arkansas, Nebraska, Kentucky, Arizona and Texas sued under state consumer protection laws. A Nebraska court denied PDD’s motion to dismiss on 9 April 2026. Texas became the first state to settle: according to the Texas Attorney General’s office, as reported by Reuters in October 2026, Temu will pay $3 million, keep Texans’ personal data on US servers, send to China only data needed to complete a transaction, and run annual independent safety testing, including of clothing and children’s items. Temu denied wrongdoing. FLJ looked at the data questions behind these cases in Little Shop of Data: Temu.
In China and elsewhere, the market regulator fined the operator of the Pinduoduo platform about RMB1.5 billion in April 2026 over food business licence checks, and the 20-F records suspensions of Temu in Vietnam and Uzbekistan that had not been lifted when it was filed. Temu is also in a long-running legal fight with Shein in the US and UK, covered in FLJ’s guide to the Shein v Temu cross-suits.
Why does Temu’s ownership matter for fashion brands?
For a brand that finds copies of its designs or counterfeit goods on Temu, the ownership chain tells you who to name and where. A US claim will usually name Whaleco Inc. and sometimes PDD Holdings. An EU notice or complaint under the Digital Services Act goes to the Irish operator, and Temu’s status as a very large online platform means it must verify traders, process notices diligently and explain its decisions. Because Temu is a marketplace for third-party sellers, the seller behind an infringing listing is often a separate, usually China-based business; the platform’s know-your-trader duties are what let a brand reach it. The end of duty-free treatment for low-value parcels also changes the economics of the model, as FLJ explains in the end of de minimis.
Frequently asked questions
Is Temu a Chinese company?
Its parent, PDD Holdings, is incorporated in the Cayman Islands and lists its principal executive offices in Dublin, Ireland. But PDD was founded in China as Pinduoduo, still runs the Pinduoduo app there, operates part of that business through a Chinese variable interest entity and discloses China-related risks in its SEC filings.
Who is the owner of Temu?
PDD Holdings Inc. owns and operates Temu through subsidiaries, including Whaleco Inc. in the US and Whaleco Technology Limited in Ireland. PDD is publicly traded on Nasdaq. Its largest shareholder is founder Colin Huang, whose entities held 24.8% as of 18 March 2026, followed by Tencent with 13.8%.
Does Tencent own Temu?
Not directly. Tencent owns about 13.8% of PDD Holdings, Temu’s parent, which makes it the second largest shareholder after entities linked to Colin Huang. PDD’s annual report describes Tencent as one of its principal shareholders and a business partner through its Weixin and QQ platforms.
Is Temu owned by the same company as Pinduoduo?
Yes. PDD Holdings owns both. Pinduoduo is its shopping app for the Chinese mainland and Temu is its international marketplace, launched in the US in September 2022. The parent company was itself called Pinduoduo Inc. until it was renamed PDD Holdings in February 2023.
Who is the CEO of Temu?
PDD Holdings is led by Lei Chen and Jiazhen Zhao, who have been co-chairmen and co-chief executives since December 2025. Both are founding members of the company. PDD’s annual report does not name a separate chief executive for the Temu business.
Why is Temu’s parent company based in Dublin?
PDD has not given a public reason. Its annual report filed in April 2023 first listed Dublin as its principal executive offices, replacing Shanghai, and its EU operator Whaleco Technology Limited is Irish. Ireland is a common European base for large technology groups, and the 20-F gives the Dublin address for the company’s official contact person.
This article is general information, not legal advice or investment advice. Shareholding figures are taken from PDD Holdings’ annual report for 2025 and are as of 18 March 2026; they may have changed since.
Featured image: Temu logo by WhaleCo Inc. via Wikimedia Commons, public domain (adapted)
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