Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the PDD Holdings, Inc. 1Q 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to hand the conference over to our host today. Please go ahead. .

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. PED Holdings earnings release was distributed earlier and is available on our website at investor.pddholdings.com as well as to the Globe Newswire services. Before we start, I'd like to refer you to our safe harbor statement in the press earnings release, which applies to this call as will make certain forward-looking statements.

Also, this call 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 on the call are Mr. Chen Li, our Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer; Mr.

Jiazhen Zhao, our Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer; as well as Mr. Li Zhang, our Financial Director. -- and Jason will make some general marks on our performance for the past quarter and our strategic focus. -- and Jon will then walk us through our financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2026. During the Q&A session, me and Chen will answer questions in Chinese and will help translate. Please note that English translation is for reference only. And 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, Jiazhen, please go ahead.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] Hello, everyone. This is Jiazhen. Thank you all for joining the first quarter 2026 earnings call. .

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted]. And this year marks the beginning of PDD's second decade. Following my appointment as Chairman, this is also a critical year for the complete reinvention of our corporate organization and culture, which is centered on the high-quality development of new debt. We are calling on everyone across all levels of the company to pull together in a sustained effort to drive a deep transformation in our business line teams, internal processes and organizational management.

The whole team is required to treat safety, compliance and social responsibility as the absolute request for everything we do and maintain a clear focus on high-quality development. We are committed to stepping up to our responsibilities as a platform enterprise to create positive value for our users the industry and society as a whole.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] The company entered a new phase of the 3-year strategy to build another Pingle door, which was launched last year. Our new first-party brand business is making steady progress, and we are doubling down on our supply chain through innovative models and fresh investments. At the same time, our long-term $100 billion support initiatives continue to generate value for merchants and the broader industry. The team is accelerating the rollout of free shipping to rural villages, enhancing platform governance and compliance and proactively taking on broader social responsibilities.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] We delivered solid results in the past quarter. Group revenue in the quarter was RMB 16.2 billion, a year-over-year increase of 11%. As communicated in the past, our priority is long-term value creation through sustained investments in the ecosystem and the supply chain rather than short-term results.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] In March, we incorporated a dedicated company in Changan, marking the official launch of our third-party brand business with an initial cash injection of RMB 15 billion and plan to invest RMB 100 billion over the next few years. Currently, our team is steadily advancing this business by going deep into industry hubs to accelerate the consolidation of supply chain resources. We are also collaborating closely with global IPs for deep co-creation to incubate new brands tailored to various markets and product categories. This holistic approach will empower our supply chain transition towards brand development, customizing our breakthrough across the entire supply chain.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] Throughout the first quarter, our $100 billion support program continues to see high levels of investments, rolling out upgraded integrations of initiatives such as total premium produce, new quality supply and logistics support to remote regions. In agriculture, we launched the 2026 Dudu premium products program. Building our last year's support for products and merchants, we are now deepening our support across the entire value chain, including planting and cultivation coaching logistics and deep processing of agriculture products. This helps improve the quality and efficiency of the agriculture supply chain and enable production regions to move up the value chain.

The first phase of these projects has been launched in specialty regions such as mining Oranges, Hanania, Porath, Inca, Codere and Linae.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] Within the industrial growth, the latest brand of our new quality supply initiatives continue to deliver tangible results. The initiative has been introduced to manufacturing hubs such as John Jonas, Genoni, Cintas, Zhongshan Lighting and Tianjin Chocolate and merchants and factories are starting to move away from the homogeneous competition of selling whatever others are selling and shifting towards a consumer-centric R&D-driven model. They are uncovering highly specific and differentiated consumer demand on platform and successfully building their own breadth, homoschool driver factories are rapidly growing into automated smart factories.

The efficiency and quality achieved through this transformation offers a new road map to industry upgrades.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] In addition, our logistic support to remote regions has also unlocked new growth opportunities to a wide range of merchants, take the lighting industry in Zhongshan as an example, shifting a large sealing light from Congstansu used to cost RMB 4 to RMB 50. By covering the transcription fee for the merchant, the platform is able to cut the shipping costs to around RMB 10, many merchants are seeing order volumes to Western provinces growing an annual rate of over 30%.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] Since the beginning of this year, building on our logistics support to more regions, we are rolling out the reciting villages initiative at full speed and have achieved some initial results. Taking some contents in Honasan example, by setting up last-mile delivery network such as country-level transfer warehouses and vintage pickup points, we have expanded the direct to village coverage to over 70% of local villages by March. The daily order volume at these transfer warehouses have approached 10,000 orders. This not only brings more rural areas in the free shipping zones, but also create more local job opportunities. injecting greater vitality with county and rural economies.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] Starting platform government, multiple rounds of initiatives have been rolled out to continuously strengthen platform oversight enhance our compliance capabilities and improving the overall experience for our users and merchants. In the first quarter, the platform introduced over 20 food safety initiatives. These include compliance review of business qualifications, food advertising cost moderation through live streaming monitoring and building a dedicated food database. We have also enhanced compliance inspection of live streaming, upgraded food safety reporting channels and strengthen automated and menu monitoring.

Whether the turnaround time for handling store violations has been shortened within ours safeguarding full safety for consumers.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] Initial challenges are inevitable these difficulties will be the very few that powers our self transformation. This new phase of growth also provides a good opportunity to build new teams, new systems and culture. Our current leadership team will tackle these challenges head on putting our heads down and working diligently. We will answer the public concerns and expectations with concrete actions and measurable results and leave up to the trust and support that are placing us by all stakeholders.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] Now I will hand it over to Chen Lei for further remarks.

Thank you, and hello, everyone. Thank you all for joining our earnings call today. The last year's Annual General Meeting, we officially put forward the 3-year strategy of building another into door focusing the company's strategic priority on the investment in the supply chain. In the first quarter of this year, dedicated company was established to launch the first-party brand business in the first full quarter under the 3-year strategy.

In the first quarter, study progress was made in our first-party brand business, the team went deep into the industrial belt across different product categories to crate the integration of high-quality supply chain resources and to lay the foundation of the first-party business model. comparation are taking place with merchants and manufacturers across different categories to design and develop first-party brand products they lead to different global markets. These initiatives aim at raising supply chain centers and driving the transformation and upgrade the supply chain. This quarter, our global business continued to grow at a steady pace opening great market opportunities.

At the same time, the continuous investments under the 100 million support program have yield valuable insights, the first-hand experiences which will guide the future investment in the supply chain. Since the beginning of this year, we have stepped up our investment in our platform and vile ecosystem from multiple initiatives under the $100 billion support program. We enhanced the overall experience for our merchants and customers. Its agricultural supply chain more efficient and resilient.

We have a train upgrade business model, extending free shipping coverage to more remote areas and rural regions, the company is consistently delivering value to both supply and demand side of our platform. In the industrial balance, many merchants are leveraging our platform support to build their own brand. Any merchant has been optimizing their product portfolio to be more focused and curated and transitioning from standard bench manufacturing to demand-driven customization. This transition is enabling them to quickly grow into emerging brands in the respective categories.

At the same time, any transitional OEM factories are also moving beyond basic productions, investing in product development, technology, branding and distribution channels evolving from a volume-driven model to currency driven, bringing more resilient and value through the supply chain, acting as a new catalyst for the industry transformation. The results from our 100 billion support program demonstrates that brand development is the next major opportunity for supply chain upgrades, which gives us conviction in the first-party brand model. Branded products only getting started on our global platform with consumer demand still underserved in different markets.

This creates significant potential in launching branded products in various product categories. Through the first-party brand model, goal is to systematically incubate a portfolio of globally recognized brands, which, in turn, will drive transformation of the supply chain. And this year has been continued investment in agricultural research. Just recently, we launched the final of Fit Smart App freculture competition.

The 4 final teams have designed and build their on-plan factories. Relying on these facilities, the participants will explore store are activation solutions and maximize yield and quality, minimizing cost and use. This year marks the sixth deceleration of the smart agriculture competition over the years, it has evolved from an industry context the testing ground for tanagricultural technology innovation into real-world applications. It has also become an integrator for the next generation of agricultural research talents making its own contribution to the modernization of agriculture. 2026 marks the new starting point for PDV's next decade.

Jiazhen just mentioned, we have listed cagey on our shortcomings and have taken decisive steps to rectify our operations. restructuring our internal management and strengthening our team's compliance awareness, we are building a foundation that manages the long-term health growth of the company and the industry. From the impact and a deep sense of duty, we move forward with the firm belief that staying true to our roots is the foundation prerequisite and a guiding principle for all our future undertakings, and we will be in serve as a compass for the next phase of our journey to increase investment in a new business resolutely advanced the first-party brand business and step investments in the supply chain.

Through these efforts, objective is to build another kind door in the next 3 years and to drive the transformation of the supply chain as a whole. And now let me hand it over to Liu we will walk you through our financial performance for the first quarter of 2026.

Well, thank you, Lei. Hi, everyone. This is John. Let me walk you through our financial performance for the first quarter ended March 31, 2026. In terms of income statement, in the first quarter, our total revenues increased 11% year-over-year to RMB 106.2 billion.

This was mainly driven by the increase in revenues from transaction services. Revenues from online marketing services and others for RMB 49.9 billion this quarter compared with RMB 48.7 million in the same quarter of 2025. Revenues from transaction services were RMB 56.3 billion, up 20% from same quarter last year. Moving on to costs and expenses. Our total cost of revenues increased 15% from RMB 40.9 million in Q1 2020 and to RMB 46.9 billion this quarter, mainly due to increase in fulfillment fees, bandwidth and server costs and payment processing fees.

On a GAAP basis, total operating expenses this quarter were RMB 39.8 billion compared with RMB 38.6 billion in the same quarter of 2025. On a non-GAAP basis, total operating expenses increased to RMB 38.3 billion this quarter from RMB 36.5 billion in 2025. Our total non-GAAP operating expenses as a percentage of total revenues this quarter was 36% compared to 38% in the same quarter last year. Looking into specific expense items. Our non-GAAP sales and marketing expenses this quarter for RMB 33.4 billion compared to RMB 32.8 billion in the same quarter last year. On a non-GAAP basis, our sales and marketing expenses as a percentage of our revenue this quarter was 31% versus 34% for the same quarter last year.

Our non-GAAP general and administrative expenses were $872 million versus RMB 735 million in the same quarter of 2025. Our research and development expenses were RMB 4 billion this quarter on a non-GAAP basis, up 32% year-over-year. On a GAAP basis, operating profit for the quarter was RMB 19.6 billion versus RMB 16.1 billion in the same quarter last year, up 22% year-over-year. Non-GAAP operating profit was RMB 21.1 billion versus RMB 18.3 billion in the same quarter last year. Non-GAAP operating profit margin was 20% this quarter compared to 19% for the same quarter last year.

Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders was RMB 12.5 billion for the quarter compared to RMB 14.7 million in the same quarter last year. Basic earnings per ADS was RMB 8.94 and diluted earnings per ADS was RMB 8.48 versus basic earnings per ADS of RMB 10.5 and diluted earnings per ADS of RMB 9.94 in the same quarter of 2025. Non-GAAP net income attributable to ordinary shareholders was RMB 14.1 billion versus RMB 16.9 in the same quarter last year. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per ADS was RMB 9.51 versus RMB 11.4 in the same quarter of 2025. That completes the income statements. Now let me move on to cash flow.

Our net cash generated from operating activities was RMB 16.4 billion compared with RMB 15.5 billion in the same quarter last year. As of March 31, 2026, we had RMB 436.1 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments. And thank you. This concludes my prepared remarks.

So thank you, Jim. Next, we'll move on to the Q&A session. Today's Q&A session, Lay, Tiaan and Zhong will take questions from analysts on the line. We could take a maximum of 2 questions from each analyst. Lay and Jason will answer questions in Chinese will help transfer for convenience service. Operator, we'll open for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question today comes from Alicia Yap with Citigroup. .

[Foreign Language] First is that the company has been positioned as the e-commerce platform. And then we saw the company launched the new first-party brand initiative last quarter. So could management elaborate on the key considerations behind at this current moment? And then should we interpret this as a major keyword in the company overall strategy? .

Number two, second question is from the third-party data that we see PDD's global business has achieved good user course, what will be the primary focus for the business moving forward? Has user growth expectation? And how does the pancan to retain and service consumer .

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] This is Jiazhen. Regarding your first question, since the beginning of this year, we have been driving a deep restructuring organization and internal management. And these efforts are centered on safety, compliance and social responsibility, and we are striving to create greater value for our users, the industry and the society. the formation of the dedicated company in the first quarter and the launch of the first-party brand model represents a continuation in this direction. .

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] It has become clearer to us that supply chain is facing certain challenges at the moment. And many good manufacturers are constrained by factors such as talent, information and scale have not yet completed their brand transformation and our call in homogeneous competition.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] As a platform, we have both the responsibility and capability to deepen our investment in the supply chain and bring our own solutions to the challenges that is faced by the industry. The formation of the dedicated company aims to consolidate platform resources to advance the new first-party brand business model by taking a deeper and more active role in product development and standard setting.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] Through the first money brand model, the platform takes on greater responsibility and also risks, allowing our industrial partners to focus on high-quality production. We believe this is necessary in order to drive the platform and the entire e-commerce ecosystem towards next stage of high-quality growth. And leveraging the platform scale, we will take on more risks while sharing rewards with the supply chain manufacturers providing certainty for the participants across the whole ecosystem.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] And we believe this certainty will significantly enhance the overall efficiency of the supply chain and empower factories to reinvest into product development and R&D and driving a positive cycle. And in a complex and fast-changing market environment, the platform must take on greater responsibility and deepen our operations, and we will remain highly focused, continue to invest heavily in the supply chain and drive the next phase of high-quality development for the supply chain.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted]

This is Lei Chen. Let me take your second question. After nearly 3 years of growth, our global business have received support from many consumers worldwide. As the business grows, management team has also been reflecting on how to create more sustainable and differentiated value for consumers in a highly competitive global market.

We believe the key is to return to the roots of e-commerce, which is supply chain capabilities.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] On this core priority, we will direct our efforts on 2 fronts. First, we will advance the integration and optimization of our supply chain, eliminating bottlenecks from end to end. This will not only expand the platform's product offerings, but also meaningfully enhance the consumer shopping experience. Throughout this process, we will actively onboard high-quality merchants and ecosystem partners integrating the platform into the business ecosystem of various markets .

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] Second, we will deepen the development of the first-party brand model. In the global market, brands are particularly crucial in strengthening consumers' mind share of the value proposition of great quality and great value. At the same time, brand development is also an important pathway to raising product quality standards, enabling us to strengthen the platform's compliance capabilities in an increasingly complex regulatory environment. .

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] The e-commerce industry is highly competitive with low switching costs for consumers, while people often see platforms winning over consumers through marketing. -- the true driver of long-term and sustainable competitive advantage lies in the supply chain capabilities that are often unseen.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] Supply chain investment is a long-term systematic undertaking regardless of the challenges we may face, we will stay true to our roots, continue to drive deep transformations across our teams, business process and organizational management. and continue to grow our global business with tangible supply chain improvements.

Your next question comes from Ronald Keung with Goldman Sachs. .

[Foreign Language] Two questions. One is we note the announcement of the 3-year EUR 100 billion investment plan for the first-party brand initiative. So my question is in which areas do the company plan to allocate these investments? When can we expect this to begin to reflect in the company's financials?

And how should we evaluate the incremental growth potential driven by the strategy. My second question is we've seen from the National Bureau Latistics consumption growth in the first quarter was quite solid. And on penetration, rate for Cisco goods is still rising. So in that backdrop, we see the online marketing service growth rate slowed in the first quarter for PDD.

So -- could you outline just where the future growth for GMV and on the marketing services from here?

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] This is Jiazhen. To your first question, First, brand building involves a range of capabilities from product design, standard setting manufacturing to quality control, warehousing and fulfillment, legal compliance customer service and so on. And each requires long-term and patient investment and many SME manufacturers in the industrial build are very good at mass production and cost control. However, due to the lack of branding capabilities, they have not yet moved up the value chain.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] And through the creation of the dedicated company, we are leveraging the platform's strength in technology, scale and organization to build the foundational capabilities that are required to help our supply chain partners in brands in developing brands. Under our first party brand model, we provide certainty of sales volume to the supply chain and empowering the manufacturers to confidently invest in R&D and process innovation and significantly cutting down the cost and risks that are inherent in the innovation and brand building.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] We believe it is the right strategic direction for the platform to step in and to play this for. Our advantages in technology, scale and market insights allows us to take on and digest this uncertainty by internalizing some of the risks faced by the manufacturers, we empower the supply chain with certainty, creating a win-win situation for the industry ecosystem that manufacturers are unable to break free from the homogeneous competition and focus on quality of upgrades. Consumers can enjoy quality products at reasonable prices and the platform further deepens its supply chain capabilities. enabling the reinvention of the pipe.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] And looking back at our history, from the early initiative of improving or culture supply chain to later efforts such as dual Grocery, the global business and the 100 billion support program. The platform has continuously deepened its operations in the supply chain through the process of identifying and solving problems. And if you are to fundamentally address the challenge of commuting is competition that is faced by platform merchants, we must take on greater responsibility and enable deeper supply chain integration and we believe this is an inevitable path in the evolution of the platform ecosystem.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] And this year kicks off a new decade of high-quality development. We will start a fresh taking this opportunity to reshape our organization and internal management and focus on building supply chain capabilities. And the first-party brand initiative is the first strategic move that we implemented after announcing the strategy of having investment supply chain a few months ago. As we roll out more supply chain initiatives, we believe we'll have the opportunity to build another Pinedo over the next 3 years.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] And to your second question, the online retail market continues to hold great potential, and there is much more that we can do. However, at the same time, the industry has entered a critical phase of high-quality development, the only way to realize sustainable and healthy industry growth is to take the necessary initiatives to deeply empower the supply chain.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] And based on this understanding, following the launch of the 100 million support program for last year, we rolled out a series of supply chain apport initiatives. Our teams have gone deep into the agricultural regions and industrial belt by solving practical supply chain issues, we are unlocking further growth for both the industry and the platform.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] And for instance, our team is in the process of upgrading the village pickup points to a multifunctional digital rule micro -- and this new model operates, I suppose parcel pickup points and the first mallogistics node for the distribution of local specialty agriculture products. And by giving farmers a one-stop solution for packaging and shipping, we're actually helping quality agricultural goods reach the broader markets. And through the creation of direct employment and sale of hogiculture products, these micro hubs are increasing the income of local communities.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] Another example is the logistics support for remote regions. Our team is bringing more consumers into remote from remote terriers into the free shipping zones by creating transient warehouses and by covering the transition costs. As through tangible supply chain improvements like these logistic costs for shipping to some remote regions have been reduced by maybe 80% and levering the operational costs between the different regions. Many merchants are saving millions of in shipping costs a lot.

With these substantial investments, the platform is bridging the gap between supply and demand and creating more effective device.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] And these are just a few examples. And looking ahead, we will continue to work on concrete supply chain projects and through these initiatives, deliver more value to our users, the industries and the society. Operator, let's move on to the next analyst on the line .

Your next question comes from Joyce Ju with Bank of America. .

[Foreign Language] Let me translate myself. First, we have seen the continuous emergence of new e-commerce models in e-commerce industry, including live stream e-commerce and quick commerce. How does the company assess the impact of these new models on the broader industry landscape. And are there any plans of the companies to expand into these areas. .

Second, is in the first quarter, we saw a slight increase in sales and marketing expense ratio of the company alongside a fluctuation in overall profit margin. How should we back margin trends going forward? And what should -- what will be a reasonable like expectation as to a steady state profit margin level.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] This is Jiazhen. Compared to traditional retail, e-commerce has much lower extrication costs, which leads to faster industry evolution and more intense competition. The management team is also closely monitoring the development of new technologies.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] Product selection competitive prices and better services. As we mentioned earlier, competition among the different economic platforms or business models ultimately works down to competition in the underlying supply chain capabilities.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] And this is why we set a clear group strategy at the end of last year, to focus on and invest heavily in supply chain. And under this strategy, we are steadily advancing various supply chain initiatives, particularly the first-party brand business. And currently, my dedicated teams are working in major industrial belts to accelerate the integration of high-quality supply chain resources and building a framework for the first-party brand business. And we are working closely with manufacturers to design and develop first-party brand products for the different global markets. while elevating the transformation and upgrading of the supply chain.

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] The coming period represents a critical window for our supply chain investments, we will advance the first-party brand initiative at full speed, step up the investments in the foundational supply chain capabilities we also navigate evolving industry landscape by constantly creating our unique value to the supply chain ecosystem.

This is Liu. Let me take your second question. As we have regularly communicated in the past, our objective is the long-term sustainable growth of the platform's intrinsic value. And in this process, due to seasonality and I will only open Crop -- it is normal to see some fluctuation in our quarter-to-quarter financial results.

The long-term value of the platform is fundamentally tied to the value we create for consumers and the broader ecosystem. . And that's why we remain steadfast in our commitment to launch supply chain investments. Whether it's our first-party brand strategy, direct to village delivery or new quality supply chain in their terms, -- these are all high-impact projects that unlock long-term value and new growth for the industry. We will continue to invest in them resolutely.

So instead of crossing our short-term financial performance, we prioritize the healthy development of the platform ecosystem and the accumulation and foundation of supply chain capabilities. A small enduring store-specific capacitive advantage we determined the trajectory of the platform's intrinsic value.

And thank you all once again for joining us today. I think it's about time. We look forward to speaking to you at the end of next quarter. Thank you.

Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.