By Dhirendra Tripathi

Investing.com – Pinduoduo stock (NASDAQ:) plummeted by 19% in Friday’s premarket trading as user growth slowed at the e-commerce company, leading third-quarter revenue to fall short of estimates.

Average monthly active users during the quarter grew 15% to 741.5 million, a sharp slowdown from the second quarter’s 30% growth. This is due to the fact that consumers have returned to traditional shops to buy after pandemic-fuelled shopping declined. It was also a time when authorities in China enhanced their scrutiny of the country’s Internet giants.

Chairman and CEO of Pinduoduo Lei Chen said the company will place more focus on investments in R&D, away from the previous emphasis on sales and marketing in its first five years.

He renewed earlier pledges to give all profits to the government’s ’10 Billion Agriculture Initiative’. This is a government sponsored program that reduces inequality especially in rural regions. These comments served as a reminder about the uncertain future of how much profit shareholders will receive.

The news was released into a market already suffering from concerns over a new strain of the coronavirus in South Africa and reports of authorities in China asking Didi to delist from the New York Stock Exchange.

Pinduoduo had a 3rd quarter revenue total of 21.51 Billion Yuan, or around $3.4 Billillion. This was lower than analysts’ average estimate which is 25.83Billion yuan.

The company spent more on Cloud services and processing fees than it did for storage and delivery charges. This increased the total cost of revenue.

The adjusted profit per share was 1.15 Yuan, which is higher than the estimates. After suffering a similar loss in the previous year, the company achieved a comfortable operating surplus.