Asia Tech Wire (Apr 29) -- Chinese tech company Pinduoduo's Temu does not enter the South Korean market directly, but only acts as an intermediary for cross-border e-commerce in the country, according to Yonhap News Agency.

Temu, an e-commerce platform that has been offering services in South Korea since July last year, set up a subsidiary, Whaleco Korea LLC, in the country in February this year, but has no plans yet to enter the market directly, the report said.

Temu has not dispatched any staff to South Korea, nor has it announced any job openings in the country, and it is currently dealing with various issues in the Korean market through publicity agencies.

As for whether it will enter the Korean market directly, Temu said it is not considering competing with local e-commerce platforms in the same way that Alibaba's AliExpress does by opening up the market with Korean products.

Unlike AliExpress, Temu only offers intermediary services for cross-border e-commerce, allowing consumers in more than 60 countries to buy low-priced products made in China directly from manufacturers.

According to WiseApp, a Korean market tracker, Temu's user base in South Korea surged 42.8% to 8.296 million last month from 5.806 million in February.

The e-commerce apps with the most monthly active users (MAUs) in South Korea in March were Coupang (30.86 million), AliExpress (8.87 million) and Temu (8.29 million), WiseApp data showed.