This obscure shopping app is now America’s most downloaded

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Welcome backmost to China Report. 

Take a heavy breath. The Chinese Communist Party Congress quality rhythm is (basically) over. 

There are galore important things from the high-level governmental assembly to speech about, mostly astir knowing what the caller enactment enactment means for China’s future, but I’ll constituent you to governmental reporters who are existent experts successful each this down below. 

Instead, I privation to speech astir thing large you astir apt missed past week: There’s a caller Chinese e-commerce app that is softly but rapidly growing. It’s called Temu. And connected October 17, it became the astir downloaded buying app successful the United States.

It’s a beauteous large woody for Temu to bushed Amazon, Walmart, and its Chinese rival Shein, particularly due to the fact that your contiguous effect is astir apt What? I’ve ne'er adjacent heard of Temu! 

Well, you are successful bully company. The app remains obscure among astir people, though it marks different high-profile effort by yet different Chinese tech giant—after Alibaba, Shein, and ByteDance—to effort its luck successful the American e-commerce market. 

Temu (btw, there’s nary authoritative guidance connected however to pronounce the name, but I’ve been saying tee-moo) is simply a planetary mentation of Chinese e-commerce institution Pinduoduo. Founded successful 2015, it entered a marketplace that had been dominated by Alibaba for implicit a decade, yet it managed to emergence done the contention and, successful 2020, replaced Alibaba arsenic the institution with the astir e-commerce customers successful China. Today, Pinduoduo has implicit 730 cardinal monthly progressive users—more than 2 times the US population!—and is known for some highly inexpensive prices and innovative gimmicks that support users hooked.

Still, Pinduoduo has remained an unfamiliar sanction extracurricular the country. So however did Temu emergence to the apical of the iOS App Store’s buying chart? 

“I judge it’s driven astir exclusively by ads,” says Juozas Kaziukėnas, who founded the e-commerce expert steadfast Marketplace Pulse, “because I’m seeing comparatively nary mentions of Temu connected societal media. That makes maine judge that there’s precise small integrated designation of the marque yet.”

I cognize from my idiosyncratic acquisition that astatine slightest this archetypal portion is true—I’ve been seeing Temu’s ads everywhere. Perhaps due to the fact that they are targeting Chinese readers (I saw ads successful Chinese), oregon possibly due to the fact that I’ve made the mistake of Googling its sanction (for enactment and this newsletter successful particular), the ads person popped up each implicit for me, including successful my Gmail inbox. (I didn’t adjacent recognize determination were advertisement slots successful Gmail.)

According to Meta, Temu has tally implicit 1,000 ads connected its platforms since September, with posts successful English and Chinese. (For comparison: Similar Chinese apps similar Shein and AliExpress person tally lone dozens of ads.) When it comes to app stores, Temu’s iOS ads are mostly targeting consumers successful the US and Canada, portion its Android ads are besides successful 7 different countries, according to the app-store advertizing database App Growing.

So what are Temu’s offerings like? It has everything from covering to room products, from car parts to electronics. Otherwise, the defining diagnostic is astir apt conscionable that they’re cheap. Dirt cheap. Just a speedy browse connected Monday greeting told maine you could get 60-cent earrings, $4 location information cameras, $4 wireless earphones, and $6 sneakers. Eighty percent of the orders would beryllium delivered wrong 10 days, says the website, which is slower than Amazon but connected par with Shein.

I admit I’m drawn by however inexpensive these products are. But terms is lone 1 happening radical see erstwhile they shop. Is that capable to get US consumers to usage Temu? 

People often constituent to Shein, the Chinese online fast-fashion retailer, arsenic an illustration of however inexpensive made-in-China goods tin win successful the US contempt the decades-long stigma associated with them. Indeed, Shein is taking Gen Z’s closets by storm. But you besides request to look astatine different platforms offering inexpensive Chinese goods that failed to scope Shein’s level of influence. AliExpress, the overseas mentation of Alibaba, which has been astir since 2010, ne'er managed to truly interruption done successful the US adjacent though it besides prices products highly low.

Shein did immoderate things close that AliExpress didn’t—namely, selling and presentation. By paying influencers to effort retired its apparel and nutrient glossy YouTube and TikTok videos, Shein is spreading the thought that, archetypal and foremost, its products are amusive and trendy. The information that they’re made successful China is secondary. 

The quality successful their marque images is clear. Most radical would spell to AliExpress (or Wish, which is simply a comparable app from Russia) lone erstwhile they cognize they privation thing inexpensive. But radical spell to Shein to cheque retired the latest manner inclination and to get it astatine an affordable price.

So volition Temu beryllium much similar Shein oregon much similar AliExpress? My consciousness is that truthful far, Temu is looking much similar the latter, with its lone existent vantage being the terms points.  

“This exemplary of relying connected ads to thrust each transaction does person an expiration date, and that’s what unluckily caused the demise of Wish,” says Kaziukėnas. At 1 point, ads volition go excessively costly and excessively inefficient to warrant the costs. 

To spell further, Temu needs to truly differentiate itself from different Chinese and American buying platforms. This is really thing Pinduoduo has done efficaciously successful China. It’s known for an addictive, astatine times manipulative, app that incentivizes radical to stock what they are buying connected societal platforms to get adjacent steeper discounts. In the past 2 years, the thought of “social e-commerce” that Pinduoduo pioneered has been seen arsenic 1 of the astir palmy innovations successful China’s user tech sector. 

But it’s besides not wide however that thought would onshore successful the US. The American buying manufacture has been reluctant to judge Chinese trends. I utilized to judge that livestream shopping, which is highly fashionable successful China, would beryllium accepted astir the satellite and fundamentally alteration e-commerce. But years later, it inactive hasn’t happened, and it’s starting to consciousness similar waiting for Godot. 

“You spot immoderate tiny attempts to bash these sorts of experiments, but if you zoom retired and look astatine what has really changed implicit the past 10 years? Not that much. Amazon looks precisely the same,” says Kaziukėnas. “Perhaps [it] suggests that the West is conscionable a overmuch much established environment, economically and besides technologically, truthful it’s improbable to spot these kinds of monolithic disruptions arsenic you saw successful China.”

So bully luck, Temu! In the meantime, you’ll astir apt beryllium proceeding this sanction again soon, and I’ll support resisting the impulse to click connected those ubiquitous ads. 

Would you usage Temu? Let maine cognize at zeyi@technologyreview.com.

Catch up with China

1. The US Department of Justice unsealed 3 abstracted transgression cases connected Monday. In one, Chinese quality officers were allegedly recovered to beryllium interfering successful the investigations connected Huawei; successful another, they were seemingly faking world credentials to get delicate information; and successful the last, they were reportedly forcing US citizens to instrumentality to China. (Politico)  

2. The cardinal happening to recognize astir the caller apical enactment of the Chinese Communist Party: It shows the attraction of powerfulness by Xi Jinping. (The New York Times $)

• Li Qiang is expected to beryllium China’s caller premier, though that won’t beryllium confirmed until March 2023. He brought successful Tesla’s concern successful a Shanghai mill erstwhile helium was the city’s apical official, though radical person mixed feelings astir his rise. (The Wall Street Journal $)

3. Want to cognize what topics Xi Jinping mentioned much than his predecessors successful his enactment legislature speech? What did helium miss? There are already respective speedy analyses of Xi’s code by researcher Vicky Xu, law prof Taisu Zhang, and political subject researcher Mike Thompson-Brusstar.

4. For the archetypal clip successful 25 years, there’s not a azygous pistillate successful the Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo. (The Wall Street Journal $)

• You tin work this illustration of Sun Chunlan, the lone pistillate subordinate from 2017 to 2022 and besides the “zero-covid” czar of China. (The New York Times $) 

5. “Birth tourism” is inactive live and good for Chinese families looking to springiness commencement oregon usage a surrogate successful the United States, but the process has go overmuch much hard due to the fact that of China’s borderline controls. (NPR)

6. The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos profiled Guo Wengui, the arguable Chinese tycoon who was erstwhile adjacent to the country’s governmental elites but has reinvented himself arsenic a darling of Trump Republicans. (The New Yorker $)

7. Two Chinese filmmakers produced Diagnosia, an animated virtual-reality movie that shows the carnal and intelligence abuses that hap successful China’s infamous net addiction clinics. (Sixth Tone)

8. Meta developed the archetypal artificial-intelligence instrumentality to construe Hokkien successful existent time. The connection has nary written publication but is spoken by implicit 46 cardinal radical successful China, Taiwan, Malaysia, and different countries. (Mashable)

Lost successful translation

This was a summertime overheated by Chinese electrical blankets. 

As Europeans braced for a acold wintertime amid the vigor crisis, Chinese electrical broad factories abruptly recovered themselves successful blistery request (yes, pun intended). As Chinese work White Night Studio reported, successful the 3 months from July to September, factories successful confederate China got monolithic orders from Europe to nutrient tens of thousands of electrical blankets, a merchandise that had been dilatory disappearing successful caller years. In the summertime of 2022, exports of electrical blankets to Europe accrued 150%. Established mill owners were getting 300 calls a time asking for much supply, portion rookies blindly entered the industry, opening caller accumulation lines. 

However, the inclination came and went quickly. By October, the orders had slowed down arsenic the marketplace request was being met—and anyway, it’s present excessively precocious for the blankets to beryllium made, shipped to Europe, and sold earlier the chill sets in. 

One much thing

Come on, we each butcher pronunciations astatine times. Maybe our friends marque amusive of us, possibly they fto it go. But would you situation close the Chinese president who was giving a highly anticipated code successful beforehand of the full Chinese population? In that case, the misspeak mightiness conscionable go the caller norm. This week, Singaporean instrumentality prof Henry Gao caught a Chinese authoritative (who majored successful Chinese connection studies, btw) changing his pronunciation of a connection successful existent clip during a property league for the 20th Party Congress—likely due to the fact that Xi Jinping misspoke the connection conscionable a fewer days before.