MMM: Temu Seizes US Retail Marketshare; Valentine's Day Advertising Trends for Top Jewelers

Key Takeaways:

• Temu’s flashy UX/UI, vast assortment of low cost goods, and aggressive advertising strategy propelled the ecommerce company’s growth in 2023, becoming the most downloaded app in the US during the year, per ST data. Temu also far outpaced its peers in US MAU growth through the end of the year, with 4Q23 US MAUs up 950% YoY, compared to Shein (+29%), Walmart (+11%), Target (-1%) and Amazon (-5%)

  • Further demonstrating Temu’s seizing of US market share throughout 2023, ST data shows that it had ~51mn US MAUs through 4Q23, nearly 5x more than Target and ~2x that of Shein and Walmart, although it fell shy of Amazon’s market-leading 67mn

• Temu has become an important part of parent company PDD’s business strategy, simultaneously providing the company with a gateway to Western ecommerce markets and driving broader top line performance since its release. Although history is still somewhat limited given Temu’s fall 2022 release, ST global mobile app MAUs for Temu have historically correlated quite well with PDD Holdings’ reported total revenue, boasting a .98 correlation between 3Q22 to 3Q23

• Pathmatics by ST data shows that US ad spend in the jewelry category has declined in 2024, down -88% YoY. When layering US ad spend by keywords in creative text around Valentine’s Day, US ad spend is down -60% YoY for the four weeks leading up to the holiday

• Over the past four weeks, five advertisers in the jewelry category have accounted for 63% of spend for Valentine’s Day; Pandora Jewelry (27%), Brilliant Earth (11%), Swarovski (9%), Signet Jewelers (8%), and J.C. Penney (8%) boasted the majority of Valentine’s Day-related spending

  • Although Signet Jewelers (enterprise holdings of Zales & Kay) relies heavily on topical holidays (like Christmas and Mothers Day) to drive its advertising strategy and sales, Pathmatics by ST data shows that the company has pulled back on spend in 2024, down -9% YoY in Jan’24, while only accounting for 5% of spend within the jewelry category (compared to 20% in 2023). As Signet Jewelers reported a -12% YoY drop in sales during its 3Q23 fiscal earnings, Pandora Jewelry has jumped in US ad spend, up 90% YoY for Jan’24, building on momentum from 4Q23, when reported revenue increased 10% YoY

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