Owner Scorecard


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PDD, PDD Holdings Inc.

Commercial Services & Supplies asset-light Cyclical

PDD Holdings runs online marketplaces — Pinduoduo in China and Temu abroad — that connect a large base of small merchants and manufacturers directly to bargain-hunting shoppers. It does not own the goods: merchants list and ship them, while PDD supplies the storefront, the traffic, and a fun, interactive, group-buying way to shop. It earns its keep from those merchants, chiefly by selling them online marketing and advertising and by taking a cut of transactions.

Latest annual: FY2025 20-F · figures as filed, in CNY · 1 ADS = 4 ordinary shares
PDD · PDD Holdings Inc.
I

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025
CN¥431.8B
+9.7% YoY · 49% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue CN¥431.8B 5-yr avg CN¥259.6B
Gross margin 56% 5-yr avg 64%
Operating margin 21.6% 5-yr avg 20.7%
ROIC 25% 5-yr avg 33%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What it is
Revenue is Online marketing services and others (50%) and Transaction services (50%).
Situation
Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
What moves the needle
The business is a two-sided marketplace, so the test is whether the network feeds itself — shoppers drawn by low prices, merchants drawn by shoppers — and whether that pull lets PDD price its advertising and fees without driving sellers away. Watch the cost position: an asset-light platform that holds no inventory should throw off cash if the franchise holds, but weigh that against what it must spend to win and hold scale, and against a marketplace where low switching costs invite a price war the moment a rival undercuts it. The bad case is real — the filing leans on a global downturn, a China holding structure that owns the operating companies only by contract, and overseas data rules that can bite — so look to the record below for how much margin and return the model has actually earned.
Is it a good business?
Return on capital has run high across the record (median 32%, above 15% in 4 of 5 years), though buybacks and expensed R&D and brands shrink the capital base, so the figure overstates the underlying economics. The steadier read is owner earnings: roughly 59% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. Whether these returns reflect real pricing power or an accounting artifact is the judgment the 10-K is for.

Drafted from the company's filings and reviewed by hand; every number is shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 20-F →

Revenue spreads across 2 lines, the largest Online marketing services and others at 50%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025
  • Online marketing services and others50%CN¥217.8B
  • Transaction services50%CN¥214.1B

From the segment footnote of the company's own 20-F. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2016’162017’172018’182019’192020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMDec 2025
Income statement
CN¥505MCN¥1.7BCN¥13.1BCN¥30.1BCN¥59.5BCN¥93.9BCN¥130.6BCN¥247.6BCN¥393.8BCN¥431.8BCN¥431.8BRevenueRevenue
−14%59%78%79%68%66%76%63%61%56%56%Gross marginGross mgn
(CN¥286M)(CN¥596M)(CN¥10.8B)(CN¥8.5B)(CN¥9.4B)CN¥6.9BCN¥30.4BCN¥58.7BCN¥108.4BCN¥93.1BCN¥93.1BOperating incomeOp. inc.
−56.7%−34.2%−82.3%−28.3%−15.8%7.3%23.3%23.7%27.5%21.6%21.6%Operating marginOp. mgn
(CN¥292M)(CN¥525M)(CN¥10.2B)(CN¥7.0B)(CN¥7.2B)CN¥7.8BCN¥31.5BCN¥60.0BCN¥112.4BCN¥97.8BCN¥97.8BNet incomeNet inc.
20%13%16%15%18%18%Effective tax rateTax rate
Cash flow & returns
CN¥880MCN¥9.7BCN¥7.8BCN¥14.8BCN¥28.2BCN¥28.8BCN¥48.5BCN¥94.2BCN¥121.9BCN¥106.9BCN¥106.9BOperating cash flowOp. cash
CN¥756KCN¥2MCN¥497MCN¥638MCN¥652MCN¥1.5BCN¥2.2BCN¥786MCN¥709MCN¥601MCN¥601MDepreciationDeprec.
CN¥1.2BCN¥10.2BCN¥17.5BCN¥21.2BCN¥34.7BCN¥19.5BCN¥14.7BCN¥33.3BCN¥8.8BCN¥8.5BCN¥8.5BWorking capital & otherWC & other
CN¥2MCN¥9MCN¥27MCN¥27MCN¥43MCN¥43MCapexCapex
0.5%0.5%0.2%0.1%0.1%0.0%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
CN¥879MCN¥9.7BCN¥7.7BCN¥14.8BCN¥28.2BCN¥106.9BOwner earningsOwner earn.
174.1%555.3%59.0%49.1%47.3%24.8%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
CN¥877MCN¥9.7BCN¥7.7BCN¥14.8BCN¥28.2BCN¥106.9BFree cash flowFCF
173.8%554.9%59.0%49.1%47.3%24.8%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
-183%32%38%36%25%25%ROICROIC
-54%-28%-12%10%27%32%36%24%24%Return on equityROE
−54%−28%−12%10%27%32%36%24%24%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
CN¥1.3BCN¥3.1BCN¥21.8BCN¥41.1BCN¥87.0BCN¥92.9BCN¥149.4BCN¥217.2BCN¥331.6BCN¥422.3BCN¥422.3BCash & investmentsCash+inv
CN¥1.7BCN¥14MCN¥14MInventoryInvent.
CN¥308MCN¥1.1BCN¥2.0BCN¥4.0BCN¥16.9BCN¥28.3BCN¥32.7BCN¥32.7BAccounts payablePayables
CN¥581M(CN¥1.9B)(CN¥32.6B)Operating working capitalOper. WC
CN¥13.1BCN¥40.4BCN¥73.0BCN¥149.5BCN¥160.9BCN¥216.6BCN¥294.8BCN¥415.6BCN¥519.0BCN¥519.0BCurrent assetsCur. assets
CN¥12.1BCN¥24.4BCN¥45.8BCN¥83.9BCN¥93.7BCN¥116.9BCN¥152.9BCN¥188.4BCN¥213.7BCN¥213.7BCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.1×1.7×1.6×1.8×1.7×1.9×1.9×2.2×2.4×2.4×Current ratioCurr. ratio
CN¥13.3BCN¥43.2BCN¥76.1BCN¥158.9BCN¥181.2BCN¥237.1BCN¥348.1BCN¥505.0BCN¥630.0BCN¥630.0BTotal assetsAssets
(CN¥1.3B)(CN¥3.1B)(CN¥21.8B)(CN¥41.1B)(CN¥87.0B)(CN¥92.9B)(CN¥149.4B)(CN¥217.2B)(CN¥331.6B)(CN¥422.3B)(CN¥422.3B)Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-58.5×-12.4×5.6×588.6×1334.5×2116.6×Interest coverageInt. cov.
(CN¥426M)(CN¥992M)CN¥18.8BCN¥24.6BCN¥60.2BCN¥75.1BCN¥117.8BCN¥187.2BCN¥313.3BCN¥413.4BCN¥413.4BShareholders’ equityEquity
Per share
1.82B1.76B2.97B4.63B4.77B5.71B5.76B5.84B5.92B5.93B5.69BShares out (diluted)Shares
CN¥0.28CN¥0.99CN¥4.42CN¥6.51CN¥12.48CN¥16.44CN¥22.66CN¥42.41CN¥66.56CN¥72.83CN¥75.85Revenue / shareRev/sh
CN¥-0.16CN¥-0.30CN¥-3.44CN¥-1.51CN¥-1.51CN¥1.36CN¥5.47CN¥10.28CN¥19.00CN¥16.50CN¥17.18EPS (diluted)EPS
CN¥0.48CN¥5.49CN¥2.61CN¥3.20CN¥5.90CN¥18.77Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
CN¥0.48CN¥5.48CN¥2.61CN¥3.20CN¥5.90CN¥18.77Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
CN¥0.00CN¥0.01CN¥0.01CN¥0.01CN¥0.01CN¥0.01Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
CN¥-0.23CN¥-0.56CN¥6.34CN¥5.33CN¥12.62CN¥13.15CN¥20.44CN¥32.06CN¥52.95CN¥69.72CN¥72.61Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1.68 into 2018 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.56 into 2019 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
9-yr5-yr
Revenue / share+85.6%/yr+42.3%/yr
Owner earnings / share+86.9%/yr (4-yr)+86.9%/yr (4-yr)
Capital spending / share+63.4%/yr (4-yr)+63.4%/yr (4-yr)
Book value / share+40.8%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count
5.9Bpeak FY2025
ROIC
25%low FY2018
Gross margin
56%low FY2016

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

CN¥28.2Bowner earningsvs.(CN¥7.2B)net incomelow FY2016

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

Each year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.

FY2016FY2025

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2020 the business turned a CN¥7.2B loss into CN¥28.2B of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

FY2020FY2019FY2018FY2017FY2016
Reported net income(CN¥7.2B)(CN¥7.0B)(CN¥10.2B)(CN¥525M)(CN¥292M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+CN¥652M+CN¥638M+CN¥497M+CN¥2M+CN¥756K
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items+CN¥34.7B+CN¥21.2B+CN¥17.5B+CN¥10.2B+CN¥1.2B
Cash from operationsCN¥28.2BCN¥14.8BCN¥7.8BCN¥9.7BCN¥880M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume−CN¥43M−CN¥27M−CN¥27M−CN¥2M−CN¥756K
Owner earningsCN¥28.2BCN¥14.8BCN¥7.7BCN¥9.7BCN¥879M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still−CN¥7M−CN¥2M
Free cash flowCN¥28.2BCN¥14.8BCN¥7.7BCN¥9.7BCN¥877M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue47%49%59%555%174%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position .

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 20-F · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

  • Comfortable
    Operating income CN¥93.1B ÷ interest expense CN¥44M
    What this means

    Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.

  • Net cash, debt-free
    Cash CN¥108.9B + ST investments CN¥313.4B − debt CN¥0
    What this means

    Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by CN¥422.3B, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.

  • Not enough data
    What this means

    The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

Is it a good business?

  • Not enough data
    Industry peers: median 21%
    What this means

    The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

  • High through the cycle
    5-yr median margin, range 47%–555%; latest CN¥106.9B = operating cash CN¥106.9B − maintenance capex CN¥43M
    Industry peers: median 31%
    What this means

    What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 25% of revenue this year, a 59% median across 5 years.

  • Cash-backed
    Cash from ops CN¥106.9B ÷ net income CN¥97.8B
    What this means

    How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

  • Not enough data
    What this means

    The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

  • Investing or harvesting? 0.07×
    Harvesting
    Capex CN¥43M ÷ depreciation CN¥601M
    What this means

    Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 1 of 3 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

  • Adequate size
    Revenue ≥ $2B (a dollar floor) · CN¥431.8B
    What this means

    Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's floor is a dollar figure — about $2B of revenue as a conservative modern stand-in. This company reports in its home currency and we carry no exchange rate, so we show the figure and leave the size bar for you to apply rather than convert it with a number we don't have.

  • Strong liquidity Pass
    Current ratio ≥ 2× · 2.43×
    What this means

    Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.

  • Earnings stability Miss
    A profit every year (10-yr record) · 5 loss years
    What this means

    Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.

  • Dividend record Miss
    Uninterrupted dividends · none paid
    What this means

    An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.

  • Earnings growth
    Earnings +33% over the record ·
    What this means

    Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.

  • Moderate price
    P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price
    What this means

    Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are CN¥15.83/share (latest year CN¥17.18), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is CN¥72.61/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

  • Profitable years 5 of 10
    What this means

    Lost money in 5 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.

  • Operating margin −58% → 24% (3-yr avg ends)

    In the filing’s words The margin widened even though the filing names price competition — the gain came from volume or cost, not pricing power. Read where.

    What this means

    Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −58% early to 24% lately, median −16% — pricing power intact or improving.

  • Owner earnings growth +42%/yr
    What this means

    Owner earnings grew about 42% a year over the record.

  • Worst year 2018 · −82.3% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2018, understand why before trusting the good years.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Elevated contestability

The product is software or information, the very thing capable AI now produces more cheaply, so the moat is more contestable than the record alone implies.

In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor

The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product; it frames AI mainly as a capability.

The moat the record shows, a high return on capital held across years, was earned before AI collapsed the cost of building a capable substitute for the very thing this business sells. When a credible alternative can be assembled for a fraction of the incumbent's price, it is pricing power that erodes first, not revenue tomorrow. The live question is whether the moat survives that, not whether it held in the past. Whether that question is answerable at all is yours to decide, against your own circle of competence.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of fiscal year-end, Dec 31, 2025

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assetsCN¥519.0B
  • Cash & short-term investmentsCN¥422.3B
  • InventoryCN¥14M
  • Other current assetsCN¥96.7B
Current liabilitiesCN¥213.7B
  • Accounts payableCN¥32.7B
  • Other current liabilitiesCN¥181.1B
Current ratio2.43×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio2.43×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio1.98×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capitalCN¥305.2Bthe cushion left after near-term bills
Deeper floors
Tangible book valueCN¥413.4Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset valueCN¥302.3BGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leasesCN¥2.5BCN¥2.5B of it operating leases

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2016–2020

Over the record, the business generated CN¥61.4B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash builder, a large share of cash simply built up on the balance sheet.

  • ReinvestedCN¥109M · 0%
  • BuybacksCN¥33M · 0%
  • Retained (debt / cash)CN¥61.2B · 100%
  • Returned to ownersCN¥33M

    0% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, CN¥0 as dividends and CN¥33M as buybacks.

  • Source of fundingOperating cash

    Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span cash and short-term investments rose CN¥421.0B.

  • Average price paid for buybacks

    Buybacks ran CN¥33M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.

  • Net change in share count213.7%

    The diluted count rose from 1815M to 5694M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.

  • Dividend record

    No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Peers, Commercial Services & Supplies

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

CompanyRevenueGross marginOp. marginROICOwner earn. margin
PDDPDD Holdings Inc.CN¥431.8B65%-4.2%32%59%
GOOGAlphabet Inc. Class C Capital Stock$402.8B57%26.4%21%31%
MSFTMicrosoft Corp.$281.7B68%39.3%28%36%
METAMeta Platforms Inc.$201.0B82%40.5%25%45%
CRMSalesforce Inc.$41.5B74%3.7%3%22%
XYZBlock Inc.$24.2B34%-0.7%-1%4%
ADBEAdobe Inc.$23.8B87%32.2%33%39%
EBAYeBay Inc.$11.1B76%23.3%16%22%
Group median71%24.8%23%33%
IV

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Enter the US price, in dollars: the NYSE/Nasdaq quote you hold. Per the filing's own cover, “American depositary shares, each of which represents four Class”; PDD Holdings Inc. reports in CNY, so every figure in this tool is stated per ADS and translated at CNY 1 = $0.147 (2026-07-17, reference rate) so your dollar quote reconciles exactly. The record tables elsewhere on this page remain as filed, in CNY.

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what PDD Holdings Inc. has delivered.

$

Through the cycle, PDD Holdings Inc. earns about $30.7B on its 48.2% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 24.8% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base

The assumptions

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price
Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’20+42%/yr
Owner-earnings yield
P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)
P/B
Graham’s price gate

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Owner earnings $15.8B on 1423M shares outstanding, the balance-sheet count at 2025-12-31; net cash $62.3B. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "PDD Holdings Inc. (PDD), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/PDD, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← PCLA its page in the Manual PDS →

Industry order: ← PBI the Commercial Services & Supplies chapter PHR →