'Planet Money' explains how Temu became one of the most downloaded apps in the US

Temu was losing an average of $30 per order as of 2024

Some business experts have made the argument that Temu is more focused on rapidly gaining market share and growing its customer base than achieving profitability.

Temu aired its first Super Bowl ads in 2023

The “Shop Like a Billionaire” ad ran twice during the game. Temu saw a roughly 45% surge in downloads and a 20% increase in daily active users the day it aired.

Temu was born out of a Chinese company that, at the time, was called Pinduoduo

Today, the company is called PDD Holdings, and owns both Temu and its very similar sister app in China, Pinduoduo.

Amazon launched a Temu competitor called Haul in 2024

On Amazon's Temu competitor, which it named "Haul," users can get extremely low-priced items shipped to them from—you guessed it—China.

Temu uses gamification techniques to encourage customers to shop on its app

Games include a spinning roulette wheel that offers coupon rewards, promises free delivery, and more. Some have said it’s tough to pull themselves out of the Temu ecosystem once they’re in it.

Temu works with individual sellers who list and promote their products on the platform

Temu not only takes a roughly 5% to 15% commission rate, but also earns the money its sellers pay to advertise their products on the Temu platform.

Many of the manufacturers selling items on Temu also supply goods to Amazon

They also often make products for other stores, including Target and Walmart. However, unlike these competitors, Temu doesn’t own any of the products it sells.

See a visualization of the most popular e-commerce companies in America

Amazon’s app sees more users than the next four most popular e-commerce apps (like Temu, Walmart, and others) combined.

Congressional investigations identified an 'extremely high risk' of forced labor in Temu’s supply chain

Specifically, the accusations include concerns regarding products from the Xinjiang region of China, where forced labor and slavery are common.

TikTok boasts nearly 1.8B monthly users

The app has surged in popularity recently, with usage surging during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those users have generated high revenues, too, with over $23B in 2024.

How TSMC, the world's biggest chip manufacturer, makes money

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company has more than 500 clients across the world, but none are bigger or more consequential to its business than Apple. The iPhone maker accounts for 25% of TSMC's total revenue. TSMC controls more than 60% of the global market share in semiconductor manufacturing. Dive into the economics and outlook of this important company here.

'Red envelope' payments spurred WeChat's financial services growth

What started as a messaging platform morphed into much more with the advent of so-called red envelope payments, where friends, colleagues, and acquaintances recreate an age-old Chinese custom with the tap of a finger. The viral custom helped WeChat expand its digital payment services, effectively becoming a “superapp.”

View the growth of Claude in the US following its fallout with the Pentagon

Data from Appfigures shows that downloads of the Claude mobile app surpassed ChatGPT's for the first time in March 2026, while Similarweb reported that daily active user totals rose from 5 million the previous month to 11.3 million. Claude's web traffic was already up 297.7% year over year in February.

'Planet Money' debates the financial indicators that defined 2025

In this end-of-year episode, "Planet Money" stages a playful debate over which economic indicators best captured the chaos of 2025—from tariffs to AI bubbles—and which signals may matter most as the US economy heads into 2026.

WellHub is a startup serving roughly 4 million people in 11 countries, providing broad wellness benefits to employees

Valued at $2.4B in 2025, the company helps workers get gym access and meditation apps, in addition to basic healthcare. Listen to the founder of the company, Cesar Cevalho, explain how he scaled the company with Jeff Berman.

Pop Mart is the company behind the viral Labubu toy craze

Labubus, the Chinese collectible toys, are being heralded as the next Beanie Babies. Pop Mart, the company behind the Labubus, is using a few psychological tools to keep the Labubu economy booming.

The US tips more service providers and leaves larger amounts than anywhere else globally

This map shows how other countries stack up to the US in terms of tipping norms, and could be helpful if you’re planning to budget for a trip abroad. It also indicates if tips are typically included in the bill in each country.

The iPhone reshaped culture, media, and communication through innovation

Cultural moments, such as Ellen's viral Oscars selfie and Taylor Swift's iPhone Notes statement, have demonstrated how deeply integrated the device has become into society. The film "Tangerine" and Kendrick Lamar's "Pride" were created with the iPhone, underscoring its use in media creation.

The number of people collecting money from gig work tripled between 2017 and 2021

That includes people driving for Lyft or delivering food through GrubHub. Those people might be changing the face of the US economy at large, too. Gig work provides a cushion between jobs outside of government unemployment assistance, for example.

PixelMap, one of the oldest NFT projects, made its creator an overnight millionaire

PixelMap suddenly became popular as crypto enthusiasts looked to own a piece of NFT history. Its creator talks about its surprise success in this podcast.

The story of Apple Pay Later, a short-lived BNPL service

Apple rolled out its own buy now, pay later service in 2023, but Apple shut it down the following year. Instead, Apple made changes to let its Apple Pay users make purchases and access installment loans through BNPL company Affirm.

Every Thanksgiving, Americans eat over 40 million turkeys

That's 50% of all whole turkeys sold in the US in a given year. (Most of the remaining 50% are purchased for Christmas.)

In high school, Mark Zuckerberg rejected Microsoft's proposal to buy his music suggestion software for $950K

Mark Zuckerberg and Adam D'Angleo built a website called "Synapse," which created playlists for users based on their listening preferences and an algorithm to suggest new songs, in September 2002.

Read about Palantir's role in the COVID-19 vaccine rollout

Palantir developed Tiberius, a software service that supported the public-private partnership spearheaded by then-President Trump to roll out COVID-19 vaccines. The software tracked state-by-state vaccine allocations, as well as COVID-related hospitalizations.

How the people behind spam text messages make money

If you've ever gotten a text message from a scammer—sometimes even just someone from an unknown number saying hello and calling you by the wrong name—you've probably wondered what they're trying to get out of you. This podcast answers that question. Hint: The answer has to do with cryptocurrency.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

Roughly 43 million US borrowers owe roughly $1.7T in student debt, the second-largest source of consumer debt behind mortgages.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

Telehealth demand for GLP-1s for weight loss is booming as consumers seek easier access.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

Some researchers have labeled nomophobia, the fear of being without your phone, as 'the phobia of the 21st century.'

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.

Use this calculator to find the dollar value of your mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care for your children.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

The deadliest aspect of volcanic eruptions is often not lava, but pyroclastic flows—avalanches of ash, gas, and rock that can move more than half the speed of sound.