Temu ( , ; originally short for "Team Up, Price Down") is a Chinese-owned online marketplace operated by e-commerce company PDD Holdings, which is owned by Colin Huang. It offers heavily discounted consumer goods, mostly shipped to consumers directly from China. By April 2025, the platform had expanded its operations to more than 90 markets.
In March 2024, Temu launched its Local Seller Program in the United States. As of July 2025, the program was operational in the UK, France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, and Australia, among other countries. The program is designed to avoid tariffs in the USA and other countries.
Temu's business model has allowed it to become popular among consumers, but has also drawn concerns over data privacy, forced labor, intellectual property, and the low quality of its marketplace products. The company has been embroiled in legal disputes with Shein, a direct competitor. The rise of Temu is one of Amazon's biggest challenges in years. A 2023 report by the U.S. House Select Committee on Strategic Competition found an "extremely high risk" of forced labor in the company's supply chains and accused it of exploiting the U.S. de minimis trade loophole to evade customs enforcement. The platform has faced multiple class action lawsuits over data privacy practices, investigations by South Korean and European regulators over toxic substances in products and breaches of the Digital Services Act, and criticism from consumer groups over product quality and safety. In the UK, the Advertising Standards Authority banned several Temu ads for sexualizing a child and objectifying women. The company has also been involved in an ongoing legal dispute with rival Shein over copyright infringement and antitrust allegations, with a UK trial expected in late 2026.
On October 17, 2022, Temu emerged as the most-downloaded U.S. shopping app. According to Sensor Tower, it was the most downloaded mobile app in any category in the U.S. between November 1 and December 14, 2022. According to Similarweb, as of September 2024, it became the second most-visited online shopping site in the world. As of December of the same year, the number of monthly active users of Temu's global smartphone app surpassed that of Amazon. In 2024, it was the most downloaded iPhone app in over 20 countries.
Products The products on Temu are available in over 600 categories, such as clothing, jewelry, pet supplies, and home and garden, among others. Its products are sold at competitive prices.
History Temu is owned and operated by PDD Holdings, a multinational commerce group registered in the Cayman Islands with Dublin also listed as its principal office address.Securities Exchange Commission filling for year 2023 submitted by PDD Holdings. Available at https://investor.pddholdings.com/static-files/e9586d93-bb1d-4e98-af8a-4e73b62350f2 PDD Holdings also owns Pinduoduo, a popular online commerce platform in China. In the U.S., Temu is under the ownership of Whaleco, Inc., a subsidiary of PDD Holdings registered in the states of Delaware and Massachusetts.
The Temu platform first went live in the United States in September 2022, and ran ads during the February 2023 Super Bowl. In March 2023, Temu launched in Australia and New Zealand. In the following month, Temu launched in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK. Temu eventually expanded into the Latin American market. On January 17, 2024, Temu officially launched in South Africa, the 49th country that Temu had entered since its launch. As of the same month, U.S. MAUs on the app reached more than 51 million.
In February 2024, Temu offered US$15 million in giveaways in multiple Super Bowl ads that several congressmen had asked the CBS network not to run. As a result of the ads, the company saw a spike in searches for their name and traffic, reaching 100 million active users in the U.S., over 130 million app downloads globally, and approximately 420 million monthly website visits, as per Semrush. Research by Sensor Tower estimated that in the last quarter of 2023 Temu users spent an average of 23 minutes a week on the app, compared with 18 minutes on Amazon and 22 minutes on eBay.
As of March 2024, Temu served approximately 30 million daily users in America. By August, the number of users of the Temu app had reached 91% of that of Amazon. As of December of the same year, Temu.com saw nearly 700 million monthly visits.
In 2024, Temu introduced the Local Seller Program, opening its marketplace to local sellers in numerous markets. This program enables sellers in these countries to list their products directly and fulfill domestic orders. Through this program, both small businesses and individual entrepreneurs in America can connect directly with millions of customers.
Temu's appearance at the 2024 Super Bowl garnered significant exposure, which made it a household name for U.S. consumers.Megan Poinski (Forbes Staff).
In January 2025, International Post Corporation released the 2024 edition of the IPC Cross-Border E-Commerce Shopper Survey Report, which showed Temu overtaking AliExpress as the second most used e-retailer for cross-border sales in the world.
As of March 2025, Temu was one of the most widely used online shopping websites in America. In May, it entered into a partnership with the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition. In July, the company joined the International Trademark Association and became a member of the Anti-Counterfeiting Committee of the Association.
Business model Temu allows China-based vendors to sell and ship directly to customers without having to rely on intermediate distributors in the destination country, making products more affordable. Some sellers have stated that Temu asked them to lower their prices, even to the point of selling items at a loss. Temu offers free goods to some users who successfully refer new users via affiliate codes, social media, and gamification. Temu also uses "family warehouses", fulfillment centers run out of personal residences, often those of overseas Chinese immigrants. Online purchases on Temu can be made using a web browser or through a dedicated mobile app. Temu uses large-scale online advertising campaigns on Facebook and Instagram.
Temu requires its sellers to offer their products at prices lower than those found on AliExpress. Items not meeting Temu's minimum sales requirements (30 pieces and $90 in 14 days) are removed from the platform.
Competition between Temu and Amazon has led each company to match the other's supply chain strategy in 2024, with Temu onboarding warehouses in the United States to shorten delivery time, sell larger items, and diversify away from de minimis shipping, and Amazon signing up sellers in China to ship products directly to buyers as an alternative to using its existing "Fulfillment By Amazon" warehouses.
Temu's rapid ascent presented challenges no different from those of other Chinese e-commerce companies like Alibaba and Pinduoduo. PDD's revenue surged 86% despite missing Q2 estimates, wiping $55B off its market cap as executives flagged rising competition requiring heavy merchant investments. PDD's lean model (34% operating margin, 17K staff) beats Alibaba's 15% and JD.com's 3%. PDD Holdings uses lean operations and social commerce to outpace competitors like Alibaba and JD.com. Group buying and viral sharing for customers through WeChat creates bulk discounts that turn customers into salespeople, a strategy ignored by others. PDD Holdings recently warned investors that earnings would decelerate in 2024, as the company dealt with legal issues and a competitive environment in North America.
In March 2024, Temu initiated its Local Seller Program, enabling local sellers to sell products and fulfill orders within their own regions. As of October 2025, the initiative was available in more than 30 countries.
In September 2024, the Biden administration announced that it would propose a new rule to close the $800 de minimis exception to import duties and institute additional information disclosure requirements. The plan raised concerns that small sellers could be hurt disproportionately compared to larger platforms such as Temu.
In October 2024, Indonesia asked Apple and Google to block Temu from their app stores to protect small businesses in the country. In November 2024, Vietnam stated that Temu had not been authorized to do business in the country and suspended it the following month.
In May 2025, following US President Donald Trump's closure of the US de minimis exception as part of his sweeping tariff policy, Temu said it would stop selling goods from China directly to US customers. US orders would be "handled by locally based sellers, with orders fulfilled from within the country." Chinese products that arrived on U.S. soil prior to May 2 are exempt from the measure.
Criticism Intellectual property concerns Sellers on Temu face recurring accusations of infringing upon intellectual property rights. Multiple instances of design theft have also been reported.
Advertisements In 2023, five Temu ads were banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the UK for showing a bikini-wearing girl estimated to be aged eight to eleven in a pose that was "quite adult for her age," jockstraps that emphasised "the outline of the genitalia", cycling shorts that "appeared as underwear" with cut-out bottoms, and pictures of dresses that left out the models' faces. Temu said the picture of the girl violated the company's policy and would not be shown again but disputed the other findings by the ASA, saying not showing models' faces was not meant to objectify women and that other retailers had similar photos.
Temu is facing two class action lawsuits in the U.S. over unsolicited texts to numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry that continued even after recipients replied "stop".
Consumer complaints
According to Andrew Chow writing for Time, in 2022 Temu customers experienced a rash of undelivered packages, product discrepancies due to false advertisements, and mysterious charges, as well as unresponsive customer service.
According to Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch in relation to Temu's advertising campaigns, "These ads appear to be working to boost Temu's installs. But dig into the app's reviews and you'll find similar complaints to Wish, including scammy listings, damaged and delayed deliveries, incorrect orders and lack of customer service."
In October 2022, the Boston branch of the Better Business Bureau opened a file on Temu; by the end of 2022, they had received 31 complaints from customers regarding the website's service. In January 2024 the company has a BBB rating of C+, though the company is not BBB accredited. By December 2025, that rating was raised to B−.
Product quality Some merchants use Temu as a clearing house where they attempt to sell off low quality, expired, or outdated products.
In August 2024, Seoul authorities discovered that products sold by popular online retailers Shein, Temu, and AliExpress contained toxic substances far exceeding legal safety limits. Inspections revealed alarming levels of harmful chemicals, such as phthalates, formaldehyde, and lead, in various items like shoes, hats, toys and nail polish. These substances pose significant health risks, including reproductive harm, carcinogenic effects, and liver poisoning. In response, South Korean officials demanded the removal of these products from sale, while the companies involved initiated internal investigations to enhance their safety compliance measures.