PDD Holdings (NYSE:PDD) reported fourth-quarter financial results on Wednesday. The transcript from the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call has been provided below.
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Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to PDD Holdings Inc. Fourth quarter and fiscal year 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session at which time if you wish to ask a question, you will need to press Star one on your telephone. Please be advised that today’s conference call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your host today. Sir, please go ahead.
Cheng Peng (Head Of Investor Relations)
Thank you operator and hello everyone and thank you for joining us today. PDD holdings earnings release was distributed earlier and is available on our [email protected] as well as through the Globe Newswire services. Before we begin, I would like to refer you to our Safe harbor statement in earnings press release which applies to this call as we will make certain forward looking statements. This call also includes discussions of certain non GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our earnings release which contains a reconciliation of non GAAP measures to GAAP measures. Joining us today are Mr. Chen Le, our co Chairman and Co Chief Executive Officer and Mr. Zhao Jiajen, our co Chairman and Co Chief Executive Officer. Our VP of Finance, Ms. Liu Jin is unfortunately on medical leave. Delivering the prepared remarks today will be Mr. Li Zhong, our Finance Director. Jiajing and Li will make some general remarks on our performance for the past quarter and our strategic focus. Jerome will then walk us through our financial Results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2025. During the Q and A session, Li and Jiajing will answer questions in Chinese and will help translate. Please kindly know that English translation is for reference only. In case of any discrepancy, statements in the original language should prevail. Now it’s my pleasure to introduce our co Chairman and Co Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead. Hello everyone and thank you for joining our earnings call for the fourth quarter and fiscal year of 2025. In 2025, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the company’s founding and it is also the year in which we made our largest investment in high quality development. For the first time in the E commerce industry, we launched a 100 billion support program to support merchants. The entire company joined efforts in stepping up our support to farmers and merchants. And during the shareholders meeting at the end of last year, we improved our corporate governance structure by introducing the co chair structure and further sharpened our strategic focus to investing deeply in the supply chain and concentrating on high quality brand oriented growth to drive the entire supply ecosystem to move up the value chain. In the past year we delivered steady results. This quarter the Group’s revenue reached 123.9 billion RMB, growing 12% year on year while full year revenue reached 431.8 billion RMB, up 10% year on year. Both this quarter’s and the annual net income decreased year on year, which primarily reflects our sustained investments on both the supply side and demand side. As we have communicated in the past, we prioritize long term value generation by nurturing our ecosystem rather than short term financial results. Benefiting from long term investments on both supply and demand sides. Through initiatives like the 100 Billion Support Program, the Platform and supply chain ecosystem have been moving steadily in the right direction. Key participants of the supply chain such as agricultural regions and the Industrial belt have become core pillars supporting the platform and ecosystem while also bringing consumers more affordable high quality products. With the continued investment under the 100 billion support program, dedicated projects such as Douduo Local Specialties, new quality supply and logistics support for remote regions have gradually broadened our support from top merchants and SMEs to every segment of the supply chain, helping businesses across all categories pursue differentiated growth. This has enabled the transition from merely supplying products to pursuing quality and to brand building, greatly improving supply chain efficiency and overall industrial capabilities while at the same time creating room for profit and innovation for agricultural regions and industrial belts. In the fourth quarter, the Douduo Local Specialties team visited agricultural regions such as any lemons, Fuera coffee, Wuhan seeds, Major Pomelo, Wenchan blueberries, Fuzhou abalone and Luengan seaweed to customize wine product wine plant support programs. The team addressed issues such as the lack of product standardization and low value add. These efforts guided farmers and growers to adopt standardized planting, premiumization and deep processing, effectively increasing the added value of agricultural products and retaining more profits in their places of origin thereby enable sustainable growth in specialty agriculture industries. In industrial Belt. We accelerated execution of new quality supply program by doubling down on our support efforts. Our dedicated teams visited manufacturing clusters such as Yiwu Accessories, Ping Hu Dan jackets, Hunan Spati Snacks, Angui Roasted Seeds, Tianjin Potato Chips, Zhongshan small appliances and Shanghai Chocolate and delved deep into every segment of the supply chain from raw materials to components. Through a combination of fee reduction and support, we helped unlock the potential in the supply chain, driving an overall upgrade in supply chain operations and helping industrial belt transition from commoditized competition to brand building. So ji. , While stepping up our investments in the supply chain, we also unlocked the consumption potential in remote regions through our logistics support program, driving new growth opportunities for merchants in the fourth quarter. Building on the success of this campaign, we continue to tackle the last mile of parcel delivery into villages across multiple provinces and cities, extending the benefits of new e commerce from western provinces to vast rural areas. To date, we have deployed and built end to end delivery networks including country level transfer warehouses and village level pickup points in over 10 provinces and municipalities. We also cover the transshipping fees for orders delivered to villages, bringing more remote rural areas into the free shipping zones In terms of trust and safety, we continue to improve the business environment and further enhance the service levels for both consumers and merchants. During the Spring festival, we rolled out a series of food safety measures including compliance checks on business qualifications, reviews of food advertisements, controls on food live streaming, protection of miners, IP protection and the development of a food database, all to safeguard the food safety for consumers during the festivities. Quote. In our global business, despite the drastic changes in external environment, we delivered steady growth over the past year, mainly reflecting the competitive advantages built through our long term focus on the supply chain. At the last shareholders meeting we announced our all out efforts in investing in the transformation of the supply chain and in building another Pinduoduo. This remains our duty and primary focus. Over the past few months, the three year strategy we committed to during the annual general meeting has been translated into concrete actions and fundamental changes are taking place within the business and our organizations. In the next phase of our journey, our strategic priority will not be business diversification but rather concentrating on a high quality development of the supply chain. Leveraging our strength in the supply chain accumulated over the years, we will reinvent the platform and propel the ecosystem up the value chain. 2026 marks PDD’s 11th year and a new starting point. As we head into our next decade, we are starting afresh and moving forward with an all in attitude and a persistent focus on execution. We will dedicate more talent and resources to deepen our investments in the supply chain, accelerating its upgrade and transformation. We believe that in the next three years we will have the opportunity to build another Pinduoduo. Now I’ll hand it over to Chenle for further remarks.
Lei Chen (Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks Jansen and hello everyone. 2025 marked our 10th anniversary. Jansen just mentioned we took on greater risk of possibilities this past year and launched the 100 billion support program to give back to the merchant ecosystem. We also established a co chair structure to further improve our governance and firmly anchored our company’s strategic focus on a high quality relevant of supply chain. Through these efforts we continue to create long term value for consumers, for merchants, the industry and society. It has has been nearly a year since we launched the 100 million support program. During this time we continue to reinvest in our ecosystem through measures such as fee reductions, merchant support, trust and safety initiatives. Our dedicated teams have gone deep into agricultural regions and manufacturing heart to have hundreds of regions establish standardized production systems and to explore differentiated and brand oriented growth models. This effort has significantly improved the efficiency and quality of supply chain operations driving a supply chain transformation from scale driven to value driven. This also brings more high quality affordable products to our consumers. Our consistent investment in the supply chain has unlocked strong consumer demand on Pindodo platform. The platform delivered strong performance during major promotions such as June 18, 2011 and Spring Festival. Quality projects from different regions look through to grow graphics for coupon days and offering consumers more diverse selection and further enhancing their quality of life. Our global e commerce business continues to deliver steady growth and has reached meaningful scale. In most countries, serve accomplished in three years was to do a Pinduoduo business 10 years to complete. However, over the past year the global geopolitical landscape has grown more complex. Studies and regulatory policies across different countries and regions have continued to evolve. This has introduced greater uncertainty to our global business and will impact and even reshape our development model. In this context, we need to rely more than ever on the collective capabilities of our supply chain ecosystem. Therefore, we will continue to anchor our strategy in investing deeply in supply chain capabilities and direct more efforts, capital and resources to its transformation. We aim to empower our merchants and manufacturers to become innovators with goal consumer insights coming up product size and building brands. This will drive suppression towards high quality and brand oriented growth, creating real value for consumers. Over the past few months, we have been making steady progress on the execution of three year strategies adopted at a shareholders meeting and we are pleased to see some results in the fourth quarter. Paranormal investments in agricultural research achieved new results Last October, for the second consecutive year, we were invited to attend a World Food Forum hosted by UN Food and Agriculture Organization representing Asian enterprises. We shared our experience and achievements in supporting digital agriculture innovation and we also sponsored two great agricultural research teams that took a stage at a forum bringing new energy into agriculture research and development. Since the start of 2026, competitions in E commerce sector have continued to intensify around new business models and new technologies. At the same time, the global environment has become more complex than last year with increased uncertainty in the economic and trade climate as well as in regulatory policies across various countries and regions. This will inevitably bring more challenges and weight on our future performance, putting pressures on our profitability in short term. However, we will continue to uphold our long term philosophy and faithfully execute our strategy of of investing deeply in the supply chain, dedicating more resources to give back to the industry and the society. And now I will turn the call over to Li Zhou who will walk you through our financial performance for the fiscal year of 2025.
Jun Liu (VP Of Finance)
Well, thank you Loi. Hello everyone, this is Joan. Now let me walk you through our financial performance in the fourth quarter and the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025. In terms of income statements in Q4, our total revenues increased 12% year over year to RMB RMB 123.9 billion and 10% year over year to RMB$431.8 billion for full year 2025. This was mainly driven by the increase in revenues from both online marketing services and transaction services. Revenues from online marketing services and others were RMB 60 billion this quarter, up 5% compared to the same period 2024. Our transaction services revenues this quarter were RMB 63.9 billion, up 19% versus the same period 2024. Moving on to costs and expenses, our total cost of revenues increased 15% from RMB 47.8 billion in Q4 2024 to RMB $55.2 billion this quarter. For the full year, our total cost of revenues increased 23% to RMB RMB 188.8 billion, mainly due to increased fulfillment fees, bandwidth and server costs, and payment processing fees. On a GAAP basis, total operating expenses this quarter increased 10% to RMB $41 billion from RMB $37.2 billion in the same quarter of 2024. On a non GAAP basis, our total operating expenses increased to RMB $39.3 billion this quarter from RMB $35.1 billion in Q4 2024. Our total non GAAP operating expenses as a percentage of Total revenues was 32% in Q4. For full year 2025, total non GAAP operating expenses were RMB RMB 140.7 billion, up from RMB 122 billion in 2024. Looking to specific expense items, our non GAAP sales and marketing expenses this quarter were RMB 34 billion, up 9% versus the same quarter of 2024. On a non GAAP basis, our sales and marketing expenses as a percentage of our revenues this quarter were was 27% compared to 28% in Q4 2024. For the full year, non GAAP sales and marketing Expenses increased from RMB 109.1 billion to RMB 1. $23.3 billion in 2025. Our Non GAAP G&A expense were RMB $907 million in Q4 versus RMB 998 million in the same quarter of 2024. Our annual Non GAAP G&A expenses were RMB $3.2 billion in 2025 versus RMB 2.8 billion last year. Our research and development expenses will be $4.4 billion in the fourth quarter on a non GAAP basis and RMB $5 billion on a GAAP basis. On a GAAP basis, operating profit for the quarter was RMB 27.7 billion versus RMB $25.6 billion in the same quarter 2024. Non GAAP operating profit was RMB $29.5 billion versus RMB $28 billion in the same quarter 2024. Non GAAP operating profit margin was 24% this quarter compared with 25% for the same quarter 2024. For the full year, non GAAP operating profit was RMB 102.6 billion compared with RMB 18.3 billion in 2024. Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders was RMB 24.5 billion for the quarter and RMB 99.4 billion for the full year. In the fourth quarter, basic earnings per ADS was RMB 17.50 and diluted earnings per ADS with RMB 6 to basic earnings per ADS of RMB 19.76 and diluted earnings per ADS of RMB 18.53 in the same quarter of 2024. Non GAAP net income attributable to ordinary shareholders was Rmb $26.3 billion for the quarter and RMB $107.3 billion for the full year. In the fourth quarter, non GAAP diluted earnings per ADS were with RMB 17.69 versus RMB 20.15 in the same quarter of 2024. That completes the income statement. Now let me move on to cash flow. Our net cash flow generated from operating activities was RMB 24.1 billion in Q4 and RMB $106.9 billion for a full year of 2025 compared with RMB $29.5 billion in the same quarter of 2024 and RMB $121.9 billion in 2024. As of 12-31-2025. The company had a RMB $422.3 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short term investments. Thank you. And this concludes my prepared remarks.
Lei Chen (Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you, Chun. Next, we’ll move on to the Q and A session. Today’s Q and A session Lei and Jiajing will take questions from analysts on the line. We could take a maximum of two questions from each analyst. Lei and Jiajun will answer questions in Chinese and will help translate. Operator. We are open for questions.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press Star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press the pound or hash key. Participants are requested to restrict to two questions at each time. Your first question comes from Alicia Yap with Citigroup.
Citigroup Analyst
Hello. Thank you. I have two questions. First is that the company makes some organization adjustment at the shareholder meeting at the end of last year. So currently the company is operating in over 90 markets and at the same time also face new challenges from the complex regulatory environments. So how does the company maintain the flexibility and also the quality of execution in such an environment? And then second question is over the past quarter we have seen a slowdown in the growth of e commerce platform in China and the company’s online marketing revenue growth also show a slowdown over the past two quarters. So could management share with us your view on the current state of China e commerce market and where the next phase of growth for the industry might come from? Thank you.
Lei Chen (Chief Executive Officer)
This is. Let me take your first question. Over the past few years, our global business has indeed achieved some progress and now serving nearly 100 markets and achieving meaningful scale. And throughout this process, our corporate governance and the development of internal talent have lagged behind the business growth and that leaves us difficult to keep up in many areas. At the same time, the international geopolitical landscape is evolving rapidly with trade and regulatory policies across regions changing quickly and become increasingly tightening. This places new demands on our company as a whole. And therefore we believe there is both an opportunity and a necessity to undertake a systemic and structural transformation of our organization, culture and corporate governance. And of course this will be a gradual process. The co chair structure and the appointment of new leaders that was announced at our shareholders meeting last December is the beginning of this systematic transformation. And in the period ahead, we will dedicate greater energy, capital and resources to upgrading and reinventing the supply chain and to achieve an overall transformation transformation of our supply chain operations. I’ll also address the second question as you mentioned, over the past few quarters we have seen E commerce industry enter a new phase of intensified competition and slowing growth. In this new stage, our strategy of investing deeply in the supply chain was formulated. It was formulated from the recognition that an E commerce platform should not just be a simple transaction platform, rather it can and should do more, creating greater value for all participants across the entire supply chain. Our deep investments in the supply chain cover multiple aspects and initiatives launched recently such as Douduo’s, Local Specialties and Logistics support for Remote regions are all projects empowering the supply chain to be more inclusive. Here, I will also highlight two specific programs. Is. The first program is Free Delivery to Villages. This is a new project we piloted in the fourth quarter of last year aimed at addressing the challenges of high logistics costs and merchants lack of incentives to ship to remote rural villages, bringing more villages into the free shipping zone. And currently we have built last mile logistics infrastructure including transit warehouses at the county level and pickup points at the villages level across multiple regions in China and with a platform covering the transshipping fees for orders delivered to these vill. And under this new model, merchants only need to send their products to their transport warehouses and the transportation from the warehouse to the village level pickup points is then handled by the transit warehouse. And building on our existing experience, we apply the transshipping model to the last mile delivery to the villagers, improving the shopping experiences in remote areas and helping merchants to tap into new market opportunities. The second example is new quality supply for merchants willing to improve their product quality and services. The platform empowers them by providing industry insights and supply chain support. These measures support merchants to upgrade their operations across the entire product lifecycle from R and D and production to manufacturing and sales and driving the transformation of the supply chain system. There is actually a lot the platform can do here. For instance, in product development, traditional approaches often rely on trial and error. However, within today’s ecosystem, critical product information is compiled by our merchant development teams and promptly relayed to the merchants. Together with traffic support for new product testing. These measures enable merchants to iterate their products with more success and improve the ROI of their R and D investments. And these are two examples of our efforts to upgrade the supply chain. And faced with slowing industry growth and heightened competition, we are proactively choosing to channel resources into building a high quality supply chain. Our investments in foundational capabilities like new quality supply and delivery to villages will become the driving force behind the company’s sustainable and healthy growth in the next decade. Operator we are ready for the next.
Operator
Your next question comes from Kenneth Fong with UBS. Please ask your question.
UBS Analyst
Hi. Man. The other one. The company global business has experienced some ups and downs since last year. We have seen high profile regulatory inquiries in some key markets and significant changes in trade policy highly relevant to our operations. Could management share your thoughts on the current external environment and under such conditions? Where is your global business strategic focus in the next phase? My second question is about the profitability. The company profitability over the past two quarters has experienced some fluctuation. So could management share how different business model launch that may impact the profitability? And how should we think about the company long term profit margin level? Thank you.
Lei Chen (Chief Executive Officer)
Hi, this is Chenle. I will take your first question. Over the past period, we have indeed received inquiries from regulatory authorities as our global business grew rapidly and reached a meaningful scale in different countries. It is understandable that this has drawn surprise, concern and closer scrutiny. However, our management believes that the current regulatory scrutiny will lay a solid foundation for our next stage of growth and will also provide direction for iterating our model amid the rapidly evolving international political and regulatory landscape. Since the launch of our global business, we have consistently focused on the long term, building on our deep roots in the supply chain, we are committed to achieving sustainable development in each market and creating real value for consumers. As our business skills and regulatory environment across regions change rapidly, we deeply recognize that regulatory compliance is the baseline requirement. As a company operating within local communities, it is our fundamental responsibility as an E commerce platform to meet local needs and stay true to our core mission, fulfill our duties and contribute meaningfully to the societies we operate in. Therefore, our management team invests significantly in business compliance. However, trade policies, taxation data, regulations, product compliance requirements and other regulatory frameworks are undergoing significant changes across different countries and regions. These requirements often vary considerably and can sometimes contradict one another, inevitably bringing greater challenges and uncertainty. We are actively learning, adapting to these changes and continuously enhancing our compliance capabilities to create sustainable value for society. You also mentioned changes in global trade policies. Since the beginning of last year, we have indeed seen some shifts in trade policies in many major markets. Ensuring Business Compliance the team has quickly iterated our business model based on the regulatory environment and market conditions in different regions to deliver reliable services to consumer. This is closely tied to the supply chain capabilities we have accumulated over the years. Therefore, moving forward, the strategic focus of our company’s global business will remain on investing in supply chain capabilities. Every aspect of this directly impacts the consumer shopping experience and accordingly will be a Key area of our investment. Thank you.
Jiazhen Zhao (Co-Chief Executive Officer)
This is Xiaojiazhen. Let me answer your second question. First, I want to emphasize that currently the company is still in the strategic investment phase. The external environment and competitive landscape are changing rapidly and to meet the consumers involving needs, we are working closely with our merchants to explore and launch new business models that is suited to the new conditions. Any new model, from launching to a full rollout, requires the platform to commit substantial resources in its early stages. Whether it is exploring the new business models or making strategic investments in the supply chain, these are fundamental and long term initiatives. The timing difference between investment and return will inevitably have a direct impact on our performance in certain stages. As we have communicated on multiple occasions between short term financial performance and the long term value of the platform ecosystem, we will resolutely choose the latter. And therefore, as we continue our strategic investments coupled with a complex and volatile macro environment, it could be normal to see fluctuations in our profit margins from quarter to quarter. That. And over the past few months, the strategy we announced at the shareholders meeting is being translated into concrete project. The business and organization are undergoing deep transformation and we suggest not to focus too much on the profitability of a single quarter, but rather pay more attention to the high quality development of our platform ecosystem. Because only with a healthy platform ecosystem and a robust supply chain can the platform achieve sustainable growth in a long term intrinsic value.
Operator
Let’s move on to the next analyst on the line.
Unknown Analyst
Hello? I will translate myself. My first question is is related to the profit margin as well. Since last year, the company launched several investment initiatives including last year’s 100 billion support program and the management just mentioned heavy investment in the supply chain. In the remarks, could the management elaborate a bit on how the company think about investment and return cycles for these projects and what will be the long term impact on the company’s financial performance? My second question is Online retail sales show very strong growth momentum in this first two months of the year. Could management share the company’s view on the consumer market? Like regarding categories with faster growth in the market, does the company have targeted strategies to capture new opportunities in the fast growing product categories? Many thanks.
Lei Chen (Chief Executive Officer)
Hi, this is. I’ll answer your question. About a year ago, we further recognized the importance of the long term development of the ecosystem and we launched a series of merchant support initiatives such as the 10 billion fee reduction and 100 billion support programs, committing tangible resources to help the merchants and industries creating more room for innovation. Our management unanimously agrees that as the platform grows into a public platform with social influence. We should consider the company’s development from the broader perspective of public interest and the long term health of the industry ecosystem. The strategy of focusing on core business and investing deeply in supply chain upgrades that was announced at the shareholders meeting at the end of last year is an extension and reinforcement in this direction. And after years of development, the E commerce industry’s ecosystem is becoming more mature and merchants demand on the platform have also become more diverse. The platform’s role has evolved from initially being a transaction platform to now becoming a comprehensive business partner. Accordingly, the support that merchants need the most from the platforms has also extended from traffic support to all aspects of their operations, including R and D production and sales. This requires us to go deeper in our operations to come up with targeted support plans tailored to different industries and thereby building a more competitive supply chain. And such investments involve thousands of merchants and cannot be achieved overnight. We are prepared for long term and patient investments and are very pleased to see that many of these investments have already yielded some results. For example, with the support of the new quality Supply project I just mentioned, some merchants have chosen to reinvest the fee reductions provided by the platform into expanding their RD teams and upgrading production lines. And together with the platform’s digital solutions, they have started on a path of product differentiation and transformation. These long term structural investments will not be immediately reflected in the financial performance in the short run, but they are a crucial part of the long term sustainable growth of the platform and ecosystem. We will diligently implement these long term projects by reinvesting concrete resources back into the ecosystem we target to lower merchant costs, enhance supply chain quality and improve consumer experience. Through investing in the supply chain, we will seek to reinvent the platform and move the ecosystem up the value chain. And regarding your second question, we are also very pleased to see the improvement in the overall consumption market. However, at the same time, we also clearly recognize that in today’s competitive landscape we still face some challenges. The future performance of E commerce platforms will increasingly be dependent on how much incremental value they can create for the entire supply chain rather than relying solely on traffic acquisition and allocation. And therefore, at this juncture we have made a firm decision to invest deeply in the supply chain and for different product categories. Our merchant development teams will work closely with sellers and based on industry insights, we will provide them with tailored industry solutions to help merchants achieve new quality transformation and driving a high quality development of the supply chain. And we firmly believe that these investments are important essential for the E Commerce high quality development in the next stage. And we are committed to patiently furthering these efforts in the long run. Thank you. Thank you, Joyce. And thank you, Jiajen. Thank you for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Thank you and have a great day.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.
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