Starting with 15 billion, the "New Pim" establishes itself in Shanghai with deep significance

Ask AI · How can Shanghai help Xinpinmu build a global brand hub?

Image: Shanghai Waigaoqiao Container Terminal

On March 25, Pinduoduo Group released its financial report for the fourth quarter and the entire year of 2025. The data in the report was mostly within the expectations of seasoned investors. What truly attracted market attention was a strategically significant move disclosed during the earnings call:

Pinduoduo has established “Xinpinmu” in Shanghai, initially injecting 15 billion yuan in cash, with plans to invest a total of 100 billion yuan over the next three years, integrating the supply chain resources of “Pinduoduo + Temu,” and launching a self-operated brand model to systematically incubate proprietary brands for the global market. Understanding the deeper meaning of “Xinpinmu” requires unpacking the five layers of logic behind it.

01 The Logic of Choosing Shanghai

With a scale of hundreds of billions, “Xinpinmu” chooses Shanghai as its base, starting with a cash investment of 15 billion yuan.

In our view, Pinduoduo’s move is underpinned by profound considerations: not only because it was born and raised here, but also because this city plays a crucial role in China’s participation in the global value chain restructuring.

Shanghai boasts the world’s busiest container port and top international aviation hub, serving as the physical gateway for Chinese manufacturing to “go global.” For “Xinpinmu,” this is both the starting point for logistics and the convergence point for information flow, capital flow, and talent flow.

More critically, the Yangtze River Delta region, led by Shanghai, along with the Pearl River Delta region, forms China’s most sophisticated and complete “dual core” for manufacturing. The deep accumulation of high-end manufacturing, automotive electronics, and biomedicine in the Yangtze River Delta, coupled with the agile response in consumer electronics, fast fashion, and small commodities in the Pearl River Delta, jointly constitute the industrial foundation for “Xinpinmu” to create brands targeting different markets and categories.

In the blueprint for “Xinpinmu,” Shanghai not only takes on the role of headquarters but also serves as the hub for new quality supply and global brand center. Here, it integrates supply chain resources from both platforms, radiating into vast industrial hinterlands, incorporating the manufacturing capabilities of the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta into a higher standard of international operational system.

This layout deeply aligns with the “Silk Road E-commerce” cooperation pilot zone that Shanghai is promoting: based on the urban strategy of this pilot zone, Shanghai is exploring rule innovations in cross-border customs clearance, payment settlement, and data flow, thereby reducing institutional costs for the global operations of e-commerce platforms. Pinduoduo placing this strategic fulcrum in Shanghai reflects a judgment on the changing roles of this city and the Yangtze and Pearl River Delta in the global industrial value chain. As competition in manufacturing shifts from cost to brand and supply chain capabilities, Shanghai is becoming a hub for new quality supply and brand clusters. The establishment of “Xinpinmu” is a pragmatic response to this trend.

02 The Logic of Self-Operation

Pinduoduo’s self-operation has its evolutionary context, representing a natural extension of a path that has been clearly validated by three years of overseas practice.

When Temu entered the North American market in September 2022, it chose a “fully managed” model: merchants only needed to supply goods, while the platform took care of operations, logistics, and after-sales. This model accurately addressed the pain point of Chinese factories lacking cross-border experience, helping many manufacturing enterprises complete their initial overseas experience with the lowest threshold. In its first month, Temu topped the U.S. app download charts and quickly expanded into the global market.

In March 2024, Temu launched a “semi-managed” model, allowing merchants with overseas warehousing capabilities to handle logistics fulfillment independently. The background for this adjustment is that, after the experience of the fully managed model, some factories have completed their initial accumulation of overseas capabilities, allowing the platform to return more operational space. The semi-managed model essentially serves as a stress test for supply chain capabilities, helping the platform screen for merchants capable of self-fulfillment.

From fully managed to semi-managed, Temu has completed the construction of layered management capabilities for the supply chain. Merchants have learned cross-border fulfillment and understood overseas markets during this process; the platform has accumulated massive supply chain data and experience in merchant stratification. Over three years, Temu’s business has expanded to more than 90 countries globally, “completing in three years what Pinduoduo’s domestic e-commerce achieved in ten years.”

It is precisely based on this historical accumulation that the brand self-operation model of “Xinpinmu” has become possible.

Notably, Temu’s practice has not only validated the competitiveness of the Chinese supply chain in the global market but has also exposed the shortcoming of “having goods but no brand”: consumers can buy cheap and useful products on Temu but find it hard to remember any brand names. “Xinpinmu” aims to fill this gap.

Pinduoduo’s management repeatedly emphasized a judgment during the earnings call: the domestic supply chain is currently in a “critical window for transformation and upgrading.” Looking inward, the flow dividend has peaked; looking outward, the global trade environment is becoming increasingly complex. Under these dual pressures, Pinduoduo’s strategic choice is not diversification but focus, all in for the high-quality development of the supply chain. Brand self-operation is both a natural outcome of Temu’s three years of trials and a proactive response to the economic cycle.

03 The Logic of Branding

The strategic timing of “Xinpinmu” aligns deeply with the branding awakening of Chinese factories. Over the past few decades, Chinese manufacturing has embedded itself in the global industrial chain through an OEM model. Making a piece of clothing earns a few dimes in processing fees; assembling a mobile phone brings in a few bucks in OEM fees. Factories possess the most complete production capabilities globally but have long remained at the lower end of the value chain. This model can still operate during the phase of scale expansion, but as the domestic market saturates and global competition intensifies, the space to continue being an “invisible champion” is shrinking. A turning point is occurring.

In 2024, the added value of China’s high-tech manufacturing industry increased by 42% compared to 2020, with growth rates far exceeding that of the overall manufacturing industry. The leap from “product going global” to “brand going global” is accelerating: it is no longer simply about selling products overseas, but about establishing an independent brand image and value proposition.

The bag manufacturing industry in Shaodong, Hunan, is a microcosm. Here, over 70% of the nation’s student backpacks are produced, with an annual output value exceeding 26 billion yuan, primarily relying on OEM with severe homogenization. With the intervention of Pinduoduo’s early “hundred billion support” plan, local merchants leveraged platform data analysis to precisely match market demand, completing the transformation from an OEM base to a brand cluster.

Local brands like “KULENI” have rapidly grown through e-commerce channels, even attracting international IPs like “Snoopy” to establish production bases in Shaodong. The transformation in Shaodong is not an isolated case. Over a hundred manufacturing clusters, including Yiwu cosmetics, Shenzhen digital products, Pinghu down products, and Weihai fishing tackle, are experiencing similar changes. The commonality among these industrial belts is that production capacity has matured, manufacturing standards are in place, but what is lacking is brand operation capability and global channels. This is precisely the gap that “Xinpinmu” seeks to fill: integrating quality production capacity with proprietary brands, using platform resources to provide channel support, converting dispersed factory capabilities into unified brand value.

By building brand advantages, products are expected to achieve differentiation and premium capabilities, shifting from price competition to value competition, leading industrial belts out of the homogenization competition dilemma.

04 The Logic of Heavy Assets

Branding is the direction, and the self-operated model is the path. However, not everyone can tread this path; those willing to bet hundreds of billions are few and far between. First, there is the financial threshold.

An investment of 100 billion yuan is unimaginable for the vast majority of enterprises. Pinduoduo’s willingness to bet stems from its trillion-level revenue scale and the proven global channel capabilities of Temu. The starting point for “Xinpinmu” is indeed different: it stands on the channel network built by Temu across more than 90 countries, leveraging the hundreds of industrial belts deeply cultivated by the “hundred billion support” plan. In other words, this 100 billion yuan serves as a launch rocket for brand integration, rather than starting funds from scratch.

Secondly, there is the capability for supply chain integration.

The core of self-operated brands is deep control over the supply chain. What Pinduoduo has accumulated over the past decade is precisely the trust relationship with factories and data insights: which industrial belts have quality production capacity, which categories have branding potential, and which factories have R&D capabilities—this information has already been embedded in the platform’s operational system. Since launching the “hundred billion support” plan in April 2025, Pinduoduo’s special team has delved into various aspects of the supply chain, including raw materials and components, promoting “incremental innovation.”

Finally, there is the ability to migrate operations.

Self-operated brands involve full-chain management, from product definition and quality control standards to warehousing logistics and after-sales service. Pinduoduo has accumulated cross-border fulfillment experience in Temu’s operations and has practiced the methodology of empowering industrial belts in the “hundred billion support” plan. Whether these capabilities can be successfully migrated to self-operated brands will be the key to the success or failure of “Xinpinmu.”

From a methodological perspective, Temu’s previous semi-managed model can be seen as a screening mechanism to identify merchants capable of self-fulfillment. The merchant resources accumulated through this screening mechanism are precisely the quality supply that “Xinpinmu” can integrate for its self-operated brand.

05 The Logic of the Market

The launch of “Xinpinmu” also takes advantage of a window period in the global market. On one hand, global consumer demand for “high-cost performance brands” continues to grow. Over the past few years, inflation pressures have made consumers in Europe and America more sensitive to prices, but quality demands have not diminished. The rise of Temu has already proven that the combination of “low price and high quality” has a huge demand in the global market. However, what Temu has offered more is “goods” rather than “brands”; consumers know they can buy cheap and good things on Temu but find it hard to remember any brand names. This is precisely the opportunity for “Xinpinmu”: to fill the gap of “high-cost performance brands” with proprietary brands.

On the other hand, the global position of the Chinese supply chain is being reassessed.

Despite persistent calls for “decoupling and disconnection,” trade data shows that the global dependence on the Chinese supply chain remains solid. In the first two months of 2026, China’s goods trade exports increased by 19.2% year-on-year, with mechanical and electrical product exports growing by 24.3%, and integrated circuit export value rising by 72.6%. China occupies a dominant position in the global supply chain, and its leading advantages are expected to further expand.

This means that “Xinpinmu” launching Chinese brands for the global market has both rational timing and supply chain support—it is building brand recognition on a validated demand.

In establishing “Xinpinmu,” Pinduoduo’s management has defined this strategy as “rebuilding a Pinduoduo in three years.” The implication of this statement may be that what is being rebuilt is not only a company’s business map but also the position of the Chinese supply chain in the global value chain. From fully managed to semi-managed, from platform model to brand self-operation, Pinduoduo is climbing upstream along the supply chain.

This is a more challenging path, but it is also a longer one.