PDD Holdings’ Colin Huang and ByteDance’s Zhang Yiming top China’s tech rich list

Gains in the share price of PDD Holdings, the parent company of Temu, enabled Huang – whose net worth nearly doubled last year – to overtake Zhang in the list

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Zhang Yiming, founder of Bytedance, poses for a photograph in Beijing, China, April 11, 2019. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 5:30pm, 13 Jun 2024Updated: 5:33pm, 13 Jun 2024

Colin Huang Zheng, the 44-year-old founder of PDD Holdings, and Zhang Yiming, the 41-year-old founder of ByteDance, are the richest tech entrepreneurs in China, according to a list published by Chinese magazine New Fortune on Wednesday.

Huang, whose wealth is largely derived from the popularity of budget e-commerce platforms Pinduoduo and Temu, has a personal wealth of 425 billion yuan (US$59 billion), followed by Zhang, whose 21 per cent stake in TikTok’s parent company gives him a personal net worth of 340 billion yuan.

The two young billionaires were followed in the rankings by Tencent Holdings’ founder Pony Ma Huateng, Alibaba Group Holding’s founder Jack Ma, and NetEase founder William Ding Lei. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

However, China’s richest man is Zhong Shanshan, in the traditional mineral water business, with a personal wealth of 456 billion yuan, according to the list.

The Pinduoduo logo is seen on a smartphone in this arranged photograph. Photo: Shutterstock Images

Gains in the share price of Nasdaq-listed PDD Holdings enabled Huang – whose net worth nearly doubled last year – to overtake Zhang as richest tech founder. Pinduoduo is famous for its cheap price strategy in China, posting revenues of 147.6 billion yuan in 2023, a hefty increase of 90 per cent from the year before.