Colin Huang’s wealth surged $4.3 billion Tuesday as shares of PDD Holdings Inc., the Chinese e-commerce company he founded, rose in New York trading.
The Shanghai-based company reported better-than-projected revenue of 52.3 billion yuan ($7.2 billion) in the quarter ended June 30, beating analysts’ average estimates. Its US-traded shares climbed 15% Tuesday to close at their highest level since March.
Huang, 43, who stepped down as chief executive officer three years ago, derives most of his wealth from his stake in PDD. Tuesday’s jump in net worth was Huang’s second-largest one-day percentage gain this year and pushes his total fortune to $32.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
PDD in recent years has used promotions to grab market share from more established Chinese rivals including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and JD.com Inc. In an attempt to replicate that success abroad, it created Temu, which was introduced with much fanfare during this year’s Super Bowl.
Read More: Temu-Owner PDD Soars 12% After Sales Defy Chinese Gloom
Since it launched last year, Temu has exploded into one of the top US apps, targeting cash-strapped Americans with cheap unbranded products shipped directly from Guangzhou, China. In just seven months, the app has been downloaded 50 million times.
The roll-out hasn’t been without hiccups. Temu is burning through money and squeezing its suppliers in a bid to take on Amazon.com Inc. It’s also involved in lawsuits with rival Shein over antitrust matters.
Like the English teacher-turned founder of Alibaba, Huang came from humble beginnings. His talent at mathematics earned him a place in the prestigious Hangzhou Foreign Languages School at age 12, where he shared a classroom with the children of China’s political and social elite. He went on to study at Zhejiang University and then got a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin.
He started his career at Google’s headquarters in 2004 as a software engineer and project manager. He relocated to China in 2006 and was part of the team that set up Google China.
Huang founded PDD in 2015 with the goal of filling the gap between Alibaba and Tencent Holdings Ltd. The company went public in the US in 2018 and its shares have risen almost 400% since its initial public offering.
He stepped down as CEO in 2020 and as chairman the following year to work on research in the fields of food and life sciences. He donated a 2.4% stake in PDD to an irrevocable charitable trust and transferred a 7.7% stake to the Pinduoduo Partnership to support scientific research.
--With assistance from Jack Witzig.
(Updates with closing numbers)