Chinese e-commerce apps such as Temu have developed rapidly around the world in recent years, and have also been closely watched by the European Union.
Now, the long-planned EU is finally going to take action. According to reports by Bloomberg and the Financial Times on October 30, two informed EU officials revealed that the EU will launch an investigation into Temu in accordance with the Digital Services Act in the next few days. If the investigation finds that Temu has violated regulations, it may impose a huge fine of up to 6% of its global annual revenue on the platform.
According to reports, the investigation stems from a request made by the European Commission to Temu on October 11, requiring Temu to respond by October 21 and disclose what measures it is taking to combat “illegal or counterfeit goods” on the platform. At that time, the European Commission said it would “determine the next steps” after evaluating Temu’s response.
However, a source told Bloomberg that Temu had responded, but the content of the response did not fully address the concerns of the European Commission.
In response to the above news, a spokesperson for the European Commission confirmed that Temu had responded to the EU’s previous request. The spokesman added that the commission was analysing Temu’s response and might launch a formal investigation, but no final decision had been made yet.
Chinese e-commerce apps have recently accelerated their conquest of the global market. In January this year, the market analysis agency data.ai released the latest “2024 Mobile Market Report”, which showed that Shein won the championship in global shopping app downloads last year, and Temu, Amazon, and Aliexpress ranked second, third, and ninth in shopping app downloads in 2023 respectively.
Chinese e-commerce going overseas has challenged Amazon’s global status, and has also attracted the vigilance of the United States and the European Union.