In a seismic shift for the global retail landscape, Temu, the budget shopping platform owned by PDD Holdings, has caught up with Amazon.com in cross-border market share globally.
The platform, which launched in 2022, saw its share surge from less than 1% then to 24% last year, on par with American giant Amazon, according to a survey published by International Post Corporation (IPC), an association of 26 national postal services in Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America.
Amazon’s share, on the other hand, has slightly slipped over the past few years. Its market share for the cross-border sector, where consumers purchase goods shipped from elsewhere, was 25% in 2024 and 26% in the two prior years.
“Chinese e-commerce exports, especially from Temu, have significantly increased in the past three years, though the global e-commerce supply chain is evolving due to customs changes in 2025 and into 2026,” said IPC chief executive Holger Winklbauer.
Shein, another Chinese-founded retail giant, stabilised its share at 9% in 2025, while AliExpress, operated by China’s Alibaba Group Holding, held 8%, down from 9% in 2024 and 12% the year before, IPC data showed. Alibaba owns the Post.
The survey, conducted in September last year with 30,970 participants from 37 countries including the US, France and Australia, showed that some platforms lost a significant amount of their market. For example, eBay shed 68% of its market share between 2018 and 2025, falling to fifth spot last year with 5% compared with 17% in 2018.
Despite the broader trade war, China achieved a record-breaking trade surplus of US$1.19 trillion in 2025, on the back of historically high exports of US$3.77 trillion, official data showed.
Temu, whose parent company PDD also owns Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo, sources a large quantity of products from China. After its launch, Temu quickly expanded to major markets worldwide, becoming a household name in the US after running high-profile Super Bowl ads in 2023 and 2024, centred around the slogan “Shop Like a Billionaire”.
The aggressive marketing efforts prompted Amazon to counter with its Amazon Haul service in 2024, with prices capped at US$20. That year, Temu’s monthly active user base overtook Amazon, according to American equity analysis firm Bernstein Research.
But low-cost Chinese goods have been hit hard by US and European regulators. Last year, Washington cancelled the “de minimis” exemption for commercial imports, ending duty-free treatment for goods under US$800. Starting July this year, the EU is set to collect a flat fee of €3 (US$3.50) for each small parcel valued below €150 sent directly from a non-EU country. – South China Morning Post
