Operating from the USA, Temu is an online retail platform that trades goods produced in China. The firm, within its initial 17 months, generated an income of $790 million (€720 million), which flowed through an Irish enterprise named Whaleco Technology, as per freshly revealed reports.
Whaleco Technology, which was started in July 2022, documented a revenue of $758 million up to the conclusion of December 2023, as per the latest accounts. This revenue was generated through e-commerce activities on the Temu platform and providing corporate support services to its affiliates as detailed by the accounts.
Additional earnings of $33.1 million were accumulated from interest on cash and short term investments, raising the total annual revenue to $791.1 million. Expenses for Whaleco, during the same time frame, amounted to $747.1 million, resulting in a pre-tax profit of $44 million. Taxes accounted for $5.9 million of this profit.
The accounts also divulged that the overall assets of Whaleco Technology totalled $1.8 billion which consisted of nearly $990 million in cash and cash equivalents, $406.4 million in short-term investments, and sums receivable from debtors that approximately amounted to $450 million. A part of this receivable sum was due from trade debtors and other portions from affiliated group companies. Simultaneously, the company had a debt of $1.8 billion to its creditors, of which $964.7 million was owed to group businesses and just more than $480 million to trade creditors.
Whaleco is a subsidiary of PDD Holdings, which reported annual revenue of $34.4 billion for the year 2023, almost two times that of the previous year. PDD Holdings initiated the relocation of some of its operations to Ireland in 2022. The company declared in its stock market filings that year, the movement of its primary executive offices from Shanghai to a premise on St Stephen’s Green in Dublin.
PDD was established in 2015 by Colin Huang, a Chinese tech magnate, who originally started Pinduoduo, an e-commerce platform primarily aimed at the sale of farm products. In July 2022, PDD introduced Temu, a platform that sells bargain consumer goods to online shoppers.
Temu has been experiencing impressive growth since its inception. It is reported by the European Commission that over 45 million individuals in the European Union utilise this sales platform monthly. It has recently been monitored more closely by the European Commission due to regulatory concerns. Under the Digital Services Act, in May it was categorised as a “very large online platform”, bringing about a need to adhere to more prohibitive regulations outlined in the DSA. This involves ensuring there are measures in place to evaluate and alleviate potential systemic risks related to their services. These risks include the presence and sale of counterfeit items, products that are unsafe or against the law, and goods that violate intellectual property rights. The Irish regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, has made attempts to communicate with the firm on issues related to compliance with these enhanced standards.