Pinduoduo founder and chief executive officer Colin Huang has overtaken Alibaba founder Jack Ma to emerge China's second wealthiest person, according to the real-time billionaire list of Forbes. In fact, Huang is now richer than his former boss at Google.
Forbes rated Colin Huang at $45.4 billion on Sunday, ahead of Alibaba's Jack Ma but behind Tencent's Pony Ma. Huang was previously a Microsoft intern, who then spent three years working as an engineer at Google.
Jack Ma, who retired last fall from Alibaba to focus on his philanthropic activities, saw his net value drop to $43.9 billion from $45 billion as of 5 p.m. the previous trading day.
Pinduoduo's 40-year-old top honcho, who also goes by the name Huang Zheng, saw his net value balloon last June, sparked by solid growth in sales during the annual shopping promotion on June 18 called 618.
Shares of Nasdaq-listed Pinduoduo have climbed over 200 percent in value since the start of 2020, strengthening the e-commerce group's market cap from $44 billion on Dec. 31, 2019, to $104.89 billion last Monday.
In the short five years since the company was established, Pinduoduo has surpassed top competitor JD.com to become the second biggest online retail firm in China, next to Alibaba, courtesy of increased user engagement as people have turned to online platforms amid the ongoing global health crisis.
According to NextShark, Huang draws his business intellect from life and career experiences, one of which was the valuable time he spent with Google.
By analyzing the dynamics between Tencent and Alibaba - two of China's leading internet companies - Huang then discovered the opportunity to craft a service that goes beyond e-commerce and online games, NetShark disclosed.
During the 618 shopping festival, the volume of orders on Pinduoduo breached the 1.1 billion mark. The group now boasts a market capitalization of more than $104 billion with more than 628 million active customers.
Huang has a 45 percent stake in Pinduoduo and has quickly rallied to the premier ranks of China's richest people. However, the retailer is far from profitable, posting a net loss of 4 billion yuan ($580 million) in the first quarter this year.
Despite this, the over 300 percent increase in Pinduoduo's shares during the past year has enabled the former Google engineer to close a fortune divide between himself and Google co-founders and former bosses Larry Page ($64 billion) and Sergey Brin ($63 billion). Huang has already overtaken former Google chief executive officer Eric Schmidt, a mere $15 billion.
After establishing Pinduoduo as a major force in the business, the company became immensely popular in China, especially during the pandemic: it enjoyed orders that increased from 50 million to almost 65 million a day.
