How are pinduoduo's agricultural products selling? Pinduoduo's revenue exceeded 4.5 billion yuan in the first quarter! According to pinduoduo's Q1 financial report of 2019 released on the day of '520', pinduoduo achieved revenue of 4.545.2 billion yuan in the quarter, a year-on-year increase of 228% compared with 1.384.6 billion yuan in the same period of last year. The net loss attributable to common shareholders was 1.877.7 billion yuan, and the net loss attributable to common shareholders under non GAAP was 1.379.1 billion yuan. Before the release of the financial report, the stock price rose nearly 6% before pinduoduo.
Starting from Gmv
According to the financial report data, during the 12 months ended March 31, 2019, the Gmv of pinduoduo platform was 557.4 billion yuan, an increase of 181% compared with 1987 billion yuan in the same period of last year.
But pinduoduo's Gmv has always been characterized by a high growth rate but a fast decline.
In Q1, 2018, pinduoduo's Gmv was 66.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 66.1%. In Q4, 2018, pinduoduo's Gmv reached 205 billion yuan, but the year-on-year growth rate dropped to 163%. This quarter's data still shows that in pinduoduo's statistical caliber, its Gmv is growing at a visible speed, but the year-on-year growth rate is not too bright, but it is still in a long-term decline.
However, for the large-scale e-commerce platform in the development period, the long-term decline belongs to the normal market performance. After all, no one can maintain the high exponential growth for a long time.
Pinduoduo adopts the rolling Gmv accounting method, that is, the Gmv is calculated according to the time unit of 12 months each time. To some extent, this can cover up the situation that Gmv is falling continuously, and make the data and growth rate more beautiful.
Tiger sniff has mentioned more than once that due to the audit difficulty of Gmv and the different statistical caliber of various platforms, the content that Gmv can express is very limited. But just from the data point of view, the growth rate of Gmv is still considerable.
In the financial report, Huang Zheng evaluated pinduoduo's Gmv growth path, the growth of annual active users and annual expenditure of each active user, which promoted the rapid growth of pinduoduo's Gmv in the first quarter. 'these indicators reflect our success in increasing user engagement and improving the user experience. We will continue to make strategic investment in pinduoduo's users and businesses in 2019 to promote more user participation with more practical and interesting functions. 'Huang Zheng said.
In addition to Gmv, there are several relatively important e-commerce data worth looking at.
Continue to grow, but the growth rate slows down
According to the financial report data, during the 12 months ended March 31, 2019, the number of active buyers of pinduoduo platform reached 443.3 million, a net increase of 148.4 million over 294.9 million in the same period of last year, a year-on-year increase of more than 50%; the average monthly live users of pinduoduo mobile client in the quarter reached 289.7 million, a net increase of 123.5 million over 166.2 million in the same period of last year, a year-on-year increase of more than 74% (this data only counts pinduoduo app entry) Monthly users, excluding users who visit pinduoduo platform through social network and other access ports).
If pinduoduo is required by the standard of comprehensive e-commerce platform, Mau with consumption as the indicator is very important, because if users do not consume in a month, they will not be included in Mau. But pinduoduo's Mau fell precipitously last year -- in 2017, the growth rate of pinduoduo's Mau in Q4 was 98% on a month on month basis, but in 2018, the growth rate in Q1 was only 17.8%. In Q4 of 2018, pinduoduo's month on month growth rate was 17.7%, that is, it has been maintaining a growth rate close to 20%.
In this quarter, pinduoduo's monthly activity maintained a high-speed growth year-on-year, but if only according to pinduoduo's monthly activity disclosed this time, the month on month growth rate will continue to maintain a low growth posture.
Moreover, the number of monthly live users of pinduoduo in the last quarter was 272.6 million, compared with the 37 million increase in the last quarter, the growth of monthly live users of pinduoduo in this quarter was only 17 million, which means that the growth of users also slowed down significantly.
Expensive, but has come down in cost
In terms of innovation and user activity, pinduoduo gives a pretty good answer to the market. However, it's not easy to retain users after gaining customers. This is reflected in the fact that pinduoduo's market expenses are still expensive. In this quarter, pinduoduo's marketing and sales expenses were 4.889.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 302%.
Eastland, the research director of tiger sniff, once calculated that the market cost of pinduoduo is rising in recent years, but the effect is less and less satisfactory.
Compared with Q1 in 2017, the marketing expenses of Q1 in 2018 increased by 1.14 billion yuan, and the revenue increased by 1.35 billion yuan. That is to say, at that time, the cost of 1 yuan can also get the revenue growth of 1.81 yuan. However, in Q4 in 2018, the net increase of marketing expenses of 5.27 billion yuan can get the revenue growth of 4.47 billion yuan. That is to say, the increase of marketing cost of 1 yuan can get the revenue growth of 0.85 yuan. From this point of view, pinduoduo's marketing cost and revenue in recent years is not a very cost-effective business.
Subsidy is still one of the key words of pinduoduo in recent years.
Since the fourth quarter of 2018, pinduoduo has been heavily subsidizing the iPhone. During the double 11, pinduoduo's iPhone sales exceeded 200000. On May 19, pinduoduo also launched its vehicle sales business for the first time, saying that it would compete with Wuling Hongguang with a minimum of '34900' to pay tribute to the 'National God car' produced by SAIC GM Wuling, and added a cash subsidy of 6 million.
Subsidies and low prices are easy to get new customers, but it is difficult to form a real user retention. The money spent should not only win customers, but also maintain the user's activity. Unlimited investment is just like bottomless hole.
Although the marketing expenses are still increasing year on year, they are still down by 18.65% month on month, which means that pinduoduo may have realized the cost control and achieved initial results in the control of marketing expenses. At the same time, pinduoduo's loss in the first quarter was significantly narrower than that in the previous quarter: in the first quarter of 2019, the operating loss of the platform was 2.1205 billion yuan, compared with 2.640 billion yuan in the previous quarter.
In addition to marketing expenses, pinduoduo also increased its investment in technology research and development: in Q1, pinduoduo's R & D expenses rose to 667.1 million yuan, an increase of 816% over the same period last year. Platform R & D expenses accounted for 14.68% of the revenue.
Having finished the basic e-commerce business, let's take a look at pinduoduo's recent major play - how about the performance of agricultural products?
How are pinduoduo's agricultural products selling?
Pinduoduo disclosed its small achievements in the upward business of agricultural products: in 2018, the sales of pinduoduo's agricultural products and agricultural by-products reached 65.3 billion yuan, directly connecting more than 7 million farmers, becoming one of the largest upward platforms of agricultural products in China. Pinduoduo also revealed recently that Duoduo orchard (a game where users grow virtual fruit trees to harvest real fruits) has added 11 million daily users Dau in a single season.
'duoduo Orchard 'is a public welfare game application launched by pinduoduo in May 2018. Users plant virtual fruit trees through social and interactive game mode. After fruit trees mature, Duoduo orchard will send real fruit to users for free. Huang Zheng once said in a letter to shareholders that pinduoduo is committed to creating a new 'space' integrating the virtual space and the real world, where users can buy what they want at the most cost-effective price and gain a lot of happiness.
Taobao has been doing the upward movement of agricultural products, and pinduoduo is trying to enter the hinterland of mainstream e-commerce platforms.
However, pinduoduo, who wants to become a comprehensive e-commerce platform, may only be in vain at present. Whether it's pinduoduo's group purchase or Duoduo's orchard, pinduoduo takes the idea of game operation to bring goods. However, pinduoduo lacks the ability to pay, logistics management and big data accumulation of user evaluation, which is far from the concept of "e-commerce".
However, another small goal of pinduoduo, knocking on the gate of the Fifth Ring Road, has already been reflected in the data: as of the first quarter of 2019, 44.2% of pinduoduo's new users come from second tier and above cities, the proportion of users in first tier and second tier cities has increased, and the penetration rate of Taobao users has reached 40.1%.
Pinduoduo's Q1 financial report is still being tested by the market. As of press release, pinduoduo's share price fell to $20.10 (down 11.45%), with a total market value of $23.317 billion.