Never heard ot Temu? They're on fire.

Never heard of Temu? It's essentially a new ecomerse company that sells Chinese goods with markups less than Amazon. It's growing at an astounding rate with gross sales approaching Amazon. Reuters recently estimated it accounted for 17% of discount retail sales.

Google and Meta are making billions on Chinese e-retailer Temu’s U.S. push

Executives at the tech giants were taken aback by how much Temu has spent advertising with them

ByFrancisco Velasquez, Quartz Media

Mar 7, 2024

Temu was founded in 2022 by Chinese e-commerce company PDD Holdings.

Online megastore Temu earned the top position on Meta’s list of advertisers after it spent the most revenue on the platform in 2023.

Temu’s parent company, PDD Holdings, doled out nearly $2 billion on advertisements at Meta last year, according to people with knowledge of the situation who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. In a similar revenue spending fashion, Temu ranked among Google’s top five advertisers last year.

But the Chinese e-retailer refuted whether it had indeed forked out $2 billion for ad spots on Meta’s platforms, according to a spokesperson for the company, who opted to keep Temu’s spending levels private.

The little-known ecommerce entrant

Founded in 2022 by PDD Holdings, Temu has moved quickly to establish its foothold in the e-commerce markets, where fellow Chinese-founded competitors like Shein reign supreme. Temu’s roster of products ranges in scope: It sells women and men’s clothing, beauty and health products, home and kitchen appliances, toys and games, and even pet supplies.

But even executives at Meta and Google — whose companies dominate the digital advertising space — were taken aback by Temu’s aggressive ad spends, telling the Journal that they were caught off-guard.

Temu’s meteoric spending levels may be reflective of companies with ties to China aiming to reach U.S. consumers.

But Temu took a different tack by showing up at the U.S.’s most high-profile ad space of the year: the Super Bowl. During this year’s game, which amassed more than 123 million viewers, the retailer had a 30-second advertisement run four times. Advertisements during America’s biggest game night aren’t cheap. A 30-second unit has a price tag of roughly $7 million, Ad Age reported.