Asia Tech Wire (Apr 15) -- Temu, the cross-border e-commerce platform owned by Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo, may face stricter rules for regulating online platforms in Europe as the number of users surges.

Under the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA), companies with more than 45 million users are labeled as very large online platforms (VLOPs), which need to do more to crack down on illegal and harmful content and counterfeit products on their platforms.

The European Commission has asked Meta Platforms, Google, X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok, which are VLOPs, to comply with these rules.

Temu entered the European market last April and its user base has grown rapidly.

In the six months ending March 31, 2024, Temu had an average of about 75 million monthly active users in the EU, according to a Reuters report on Monday.

The figure, suggests that the platform's user base has exceeded the DSA threshold. As a result, Temu may need to comply with the EU's stricter rules for regulating online platforms as a VLOP.