BEIJING, Aug 9, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - E-commerce tycoon Colin Huang has become
China's richest man, an index showed Friday, capping an ascent for the former
Google employee whose shopping site Temu has sucked in consumers with its low
prices and all-powerful algorithms.

Huang, the founder of PDD Holdings -- which owns Temu and Chinese retail app
Pinduoduo -- is now worth $48.6 billion, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index
said.

He overtakes Zhong Shanshan, the boss of beverage company Nongfu Spring who
had topped the list since April 2021, as the world's 25th wealthiest person
and the richest in China.

Close behind them is Ma Huateng, known as Pony Ma -- head of tech giant
Tencent, whose WeChat is often described as China's "everything app".

And in fourth place is Zhang Yiming, founder of Bytedance, which owns the
massively popular TikTok video sharing platform.

Huang, born in 1980 in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, was a teenage
maths whizz and a former employee of Google China.

In 2015 he founded online shopping site Pinduoduo, which blossomed into one
of China's most successful e-commerce empires -- rivalling Jack Ma's Alibaba.

The app lured in consumers with huge discounts and a vast array of products,
offering sometimes staggeringly low prices in a fiercely competitive field.

Its overseas iteration Temu launched in 2022 in the United States, where it
amassed a loyal consumer base with ultra-low-cost goods made and shipped from
China.

Its success dovetailed with persistent high inflation that has pushed cost-
conscious consumers to hunt for bargains, and it has since taken off in
Europe, Latin America and elsewhere.

Despite only arriving in Europe last year, Temu has said it has on average
around 75 million monthly active users in the region.

But its massive success had drawn accusations of unfair commercial practices
and lax safety standards.

This year, consumer groups in Europe accused Temu of manipulating shoppers
into spending more money, distorting their ability to make "free and informed
decisions".

And in April, South Korean regulators opened an investigation into Temu on
suspicion of false advertising and unfair practices.

Last month, hundreds of merchants in China demonstrated at an affiliated
office in the southern city of Guangzhou, alleging unfair treatment in the
sale of their products on the platform.

But that has done little to dent the success of the firm, with PDD Holdings
announcing in May that first-quarter net profit had more than tripled year-
on-year.

The firm's US-listed shares closed at $138.02 apiece on Thursday, giving it a
market capitalisation of $191.68 billion.