A look at Temu’s murky business model
FT News Briefing
Forhecz Topher
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 8 March 2024
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Instagram overtook TikTok in new app downloads last year, US President Joe Biden announced a plan to set up a port on the coast of Gaza to help facilitate aid delivery to the enclave, and a huge corruption case in Vietnam has captured the country’s attention. Plus, the FT’s Dan McCrum unpacks the mystery behind how Temu took over the retail world. Credit: Temu
Mentioned in this podcast:
Trial begins for Vietnamese property tycoon accused of $12bn fraud
The mysterious rise of the Chinese ecommerce giant behind Temu
US plans to establish port on Gaza coast to step up aid deliveries
Instagram overtakes TikTok in app downloads in race for new users
The FT News Briefing is produced by Fiona Symon, Sonja Hutson, Kasia Broussalian and Marc Filippino. Additional help by Sam Giovinco, Peter Barber, Michael Lello, David da Silva and Gavin Kallmann. Our engineer is Monica Lopez. Topher Forhecz is the FT’s executive producer. The FT’s global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. The show’s theme song is by Metaphor Music.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The UK's energy partner. |
| 0:06.0 | Learn more at equinore. |
| 0:10.0 | Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Friday, March 8th, and this is your |
| 0:17.1 | F.T. News briefing. If you have a hard time stopping yourself from scrolling on |
| 0:21.8 | Instagram, you're not the only one. And Vietnam's major |
| 0:25.6 | anti-corruption campaign has moved into the private sector. Plus, are you ready to shop like a billionaire? |
| 0:32.3 | Welcome to Tamu. |
| 0:34.0 | It's this Chinese e-commerce platform |
| 0:36.8 | which conquered China in the space of about five or six years, |
| 0:41.6 | and now it's taking over the world. |
| 0:43.0 | I'm Mark Filipino and here's the news you need to start your day. More people downloaded Instagram than Tik-Tok in 2023. The social media app grew 20% last year, |
| 1:08.0 | making it the most downloaded app in the world. Tik-Tok only saw an increase of 4%. Now the driving force behind |
| 1:15.9 | Instagram's popularity was its Reels feature which allows users to post short |
| 1:20.7 | video clips which is an idea that it took from |
| 1:24.6 | Tik-Tok. |
| 1:26.0 | I guess imitation truly is the sincerest form of flattery. Are you seeing a lot of orange lately? |
| 1:37.0 | Like a lot of orange. |
| 1:54.0 | Or caught yourself humming a tune that really only belongs in a kids cartoon. Temu is owned by a company |
| 2:00.0 | Temu is owned by a company called P. D. but PDD's finances are a black box and |
| 2:06.2 | its operations are a huge secret. |
| 2:09.4 | Here to talk to me about PDD is the FT's Dan Mc Chrome. |
| 2:12.4 | Hey Dan. Good morning. about PDDDDDDDN. |
... |
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