– Colin Huang replaces bottled-water king Zhong Shanshan
– Ascent has been fueled by China’s changing shopping habits
Colin Huang, now 44, has become China’s richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
After several moderately successful ventures in gaming and e-commerce, Colin Huang got sick and retired. At one point, the young entrepreneur stayed home for a year thinking about his next move.
The former Google engineer eventually started Pinduoduo, an e-commerce platform known for selling dirt-cheap products with massive promotions, in 2015. He quickly ascended the ranks of the world’s richest people, with his net worth peaking at $71.5 billion in early 2021.
Huang ranks 25th in the world with a net worth of USD48.6 billion, according to the ranking, which is updated in real time. His assets are around one-fifth of that of Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.
The share price of Pinduoduo, in which Huang owned a 25.4 percent stake as of Feb. 29, has gained 62.9 percent in value in the past 250 days, reaching a peak of USD164.69 at one point, according to data from information platform Wind. This is mainly thanks to the strong overseas expansion of its shopping app Temu, as well as big quarterly gains in profit and revenue.
Huang ousts Zhong Shanshan, founder of bottled water giant Nongfu Spring, who was China’s wealthiest man for the past four years. Zhong is now in second place in China and ranks 26th in the world with a net worth of USD47.4 billion.
Nongfu Spring has encountered many challenges in the past six months and the Hangzhou-based company’s share price has tumbled 32.6 percent in the past 250 days, according to Wind.
Pony Ma, founder of internet behemoth Tencent Holdings, is the third richest man in China and the 32nd in the world, followed by Zhang Yiming, founder of Tiktok operator ByteDance in fourth place in China and 33rd in the world, according to the index. All have a net worth over USD40 billion.
Huang stepped down as chief executive officer of Shanghai-based Pinduoduo in July 2020 and resigned as chairman in 2021, relinquishing his voting rights. He said at the time that he wanted to focus on the food and life sciences in order to map out Pinduoduo’s development over the next 10 years.
Pinduoduo’s share price [NASDAQ:PDD] closed up 3.6 percent today at USD138.02, with a total market capitalization of USD191.7 billion. While Nongfu Spring’s share price [HKG:9633] closed flat at HKD28.95 (USD3.71).
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