The parent company of one of China’s biggest e-commerce sites has moved its headquarters to Ireland, in what analysts suggested was a move to protect its expanding global arm from tensions between Washington and Beijing.
PDD Holdings listed Dublin as a “key executive office address” in recent US stock filings, changing its location from Shanghai.
The holding owns Pinduoduo, a Chinese discount e-commerce site, as well as Temu, an online marketplace launched last year in the US and now expanding into Europe.
Temu’s importance to the parent company has grown as it aims to replicate the growing global popularity of other Chinese companies such as fast fashion giant Shein.
The news of the shift was first reported by Semafor and analysts suggested that PDD Holdings, which is listed in the United States, was proactively realigning its corporate structure to protect Temu from any escalation in Washington’s offensive against Chinese tech groups.
“Temu wants to avoid geopolitical risks. The United States is attacking Chinese companies and this will only get worse,” said Li Chengdong, founder of Dolphin, a technology-focused think tank in Beijing.
The decision comes after ByteDance moved headquarters of TikTok, the global arm of its short-video platform, from Beijing to Singapore in response to Washington’s concerns over Chinese ownership of the popular short-video app.
PDD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Moving the company’s headquarters to Ireland could have tax advantages and pave the way for any standalone listing of Temu’s business.
“One possibility is that PDD is paving the way for Temu’s slate [separately] abroad. If so, an office in Ireland or elsewhere in Europe could meet exit requirements for investors,” said Eugene Weng, a Shanghai-based lawyer at Wintell & Co, which represents overseas-listed Chinese companies.
Weng added that setting up a headquarters in Ireland would make it easier to coordinate tax matters with European countries and the United States. Temu is hiring Legal Advisors and Trade Compliance Officers in Dublin, according to posts on recruitment site LinkedIn.
Ireland’s low tax regime has attracted a number of multinationals, including tech giants Google, Facebook and Amazon, all of which have established their European headquarters or have significant operations there. TikTok has also increased its presence in Dublin and hired more than 1,000 people in 2020.
PDD generates most of its revenue from online marketing services on its Chinese e-commerce site, but has invested heavily in Temu as it diversifies away from a cooling domestic economy.
It has pledged to invest $1.4 billion to help Chinese brands increase their presence overseas and has introduced a range of sweeteners to encourage merchants to sell on Temu.
Temu generated $862 million in gross merchandise revenue in the first three months of 2023, according to third-party data provider YipitData. The Financial Times has previously reported that Shein it generated $22.7 billion in revenue last year.
Experts said PDD’s core operations will remain in its home market. Most of its nearly 13,000 employees are located in mainland China.
“PDD’s business is still in China,” Li said. “It doesn’t need to become a foreign company.”
This article was edited to correct a reference to Amazon’s European headquarters, which is located in Luxembourg, not Ireland
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