South Korean regulators are investigating the hugely popular Chinese shopping app Temu on suspicion of false advertising and unfair practices, the Yonhap news agency reported yesterday.
With sometimes astonishingly low prices and a huge variety of items, Temu has enjoyed rapid growth in dozens of countries since it was launched in 2022 by Chinese e-commerce giant PDD Holdings Inc (拼多多控股).
It is also under increased scrutiny in the US, Europe and elsewhere over its business practices, advertising and handling of user data.
Photo: Reuters
South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC) recently started looking into Temu to determine if it was violating e-commerce and advertising regulations, Yonhap said, citing unnamed government and industry officials.
The FTC is also probing if Temu is in line with consumer protection rules, Yonhap added, citing complaints about product quality and other issues.
An FTC spokesperson said they could not comment on specific cases, when asked by AFP if the commission was investigating Temu.
The South Korean probe report follows similar concerns voiced by regulators and lawmakers in other parts of the world, especially over the firm’s use of personal data.
Temu came under fire this year over a campaign in France and Britain that offered vouchers of up to 100 euros (US$110) for downloading the app and inviting another person to sign up.
The terms included granting the company the right to use personal data for life.
Temu stopped the offer last month because of "misunderstandings on the extent of client data use."
The head of South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission told reporters this month that the body is looking into how Temu and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s (阿里巴巴) AliExpress (全球速賣通) have been collecting and using people’s data, according to Yonhap.
PDD Holdings operates a similarly successful domestic shopping platform for China called Pinduoduo (拼多多).
A major competitor to industry titan Alibaba, PDD Holdings said last month that its net profit almost doubled last year.
Temu and fast-fashion behemoth Shein (希音) have challenged Amazon.com Inc with their surging growth in the US.
Both have been accused in the US of avoiding taxes and undercutting American businesses by abusing a rule that allows the duty-free import of items in shipments that do not exceed US$800 in value.
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose to No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) at 348th, Pegatron Corp (和碩) at 461st, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) at 494th and Wistron Corp (緯創) at
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
RSS