In March 2026, a widely-shared analysis argued that Temu will overtake Amazon in e-commerce GMV by 2035 at the latest. It is a bold claim — and a useful lens for any seller deciding where to put their inventory next. This article tests that prediction against the data that is actually available, shows you where the numbers disagree, and ends with what the trend means for your pricing and margins today.
Where the "Temu Catches Amazon" Claim Comes From
The core evidence is a single statistic: Temu's share of global cross-border e-commerce order volume. According to the International Post Corporation's (IPC) cross-border e-commerce shopper research, Temu grew from under 1% in 2022 to about 24% in 2025 — roughly tied with Amazon. IPC publishes the underlying cross-border e-commerce research, and the same 24%-vs-24% figure has been cited independently by multiple brokerages. For context, SHEIN held about 9% and AliExpress about 8% in the same data.
The three-year move from ~1% to ~24% is the factual core of the "Temu overtakes Amazon" thesis. Order share is treated as a leading indicator: if Temu already matches Amazon on order volume, the argument goes, GMV will follow as average order values converge.
The User Numbers Depend on Who Counts
This is where the data starts disagreeing, and it is worth being precise:
- Sensor Tower-based estimates (cited by brokerages): Temu's global monthly active users averaged about 490 million in 2025, peaking around 550 million in August 2025 — roughly 74% of Amazon's ~660 million MAU. Sensor Tower publishes the underlying app-market data.
- Similarweb's app-MAU ranking tells a different story: by its count, Temu had about 246 million MAU in 2025, ranking third globally — behind Amazon (652 million) and Shopee (393 million), ahead of SHEIN (215 million). Similarweb's e-commerce ranking also shows Temu as the #2 shopping website by traffic, behind only Amazon.
The gap between ~250M and ~550M is not a typo — it is a difference in what is being counted (app-only vs. combined, and different panel methodologies). The honest summary: Temu is unambiguously the #2 e-commerce platform by users on almost every metric, and the exact gap to Amazon depends on the source.
One metric is consistent across every dataset: downloads. Temu has been the world's most-downloaded shopping app for years running, with cumulative downloads passing 1.2 billion by late 2025 — ahead of Amazon. Download momentum is the fuel behind the MAU growth.
Growth Rates: This Is Where Temu Clearly Wins
On year-over-year growth, there is no real debate:
- Temu's GMV grew roughly 50% in 2025 (H1 2025 GMV was about 75–90 billion range).
- Amazon's total e-commerce GMV is estimated around $830 billion (Marketplace Pulse's data hub cites it in its marketplace research), growing at a low double-digit rate — roughly 10–15%.
- Price evidence backs the value story: brokerage analysis found that about 77% of Amazon's catalog overlaps with similar Temu products, and the overlapping items are on average ~39% cheaper on Temu. A basic T-shirt that sells for $20+ on Amazon commonly goes for $5–10 on Temu.
The growth gap is real, but so is the base gap: Temu is running at roughly a tenth of Amazon's GMV scale. Closing a 10× gap at 50% vs. 12% growth takes years — which is exactly why the "2035" number exists.
Why the Model Scales: Fully-Managed + Semi-Managed
The structural argument in favor of Temu is its operating model. Amazon runs a heavy "1P + 3P" mix — it holds inventory, owns enormous logistics, and layers fees on third-party sellers. Temu runs a light dual model:
- Fully-managed: the seller only supplies goods; Temu handles selection, pricing, logistics, and marketing. Centralized buying from China's manufacturing clusters cuts product prices an estimated 30–50% below equivalent Amazon/Walmart listings, and AI-driven demand forecasting lets Temu position inventory before orders land — cutting US delivery times from days to around a day and a half in some categories.
- Semi-managed: sellers with their own warehouses keep logistics control while Temu supplies traffic and pricing power. By 2025, semi-managed reportedly made up about 70% of Temu's US order volume, and in Europe a large share of semi-managed orders ship from local warehouses in 2–3 days — closing much of the delivery gap with Amazon.
The model answer to "why Temu can grow faster" is simple: a marketplace that does not carry the fixed costs of Amazon's logistics empire can price lower, iterate faster, and enter more markets cheaply. This part of the thesis is structurally sound — and the hardest for Amazon to copy, because its cost base is already built.
The Counterweight: 2025 Was Not a Straight Line
A credible analysis has to include the year the thesis nearly broke. In 2025, the US ended the de-minimis duty exemption for small parcels from China (effectively a ~54% tariff on many Temu shipments). The impact was severe and measurable:
- US Temu sales fell more than 25% year-over-year in May–June 2025.
- US monthly active users dropped 33–40% in the same window; downloads fell ~85%.
- Temu adapted — shifting more volume to semi-managed and local-warehouse fulfillment, and leaning harder into Europe and Latin America — but the episode shows how exposed the model is to tariff and customs policy.
There are also regulatory costs: the EU has fined and pressured Temu over compliance, and the Digital Services Act adds ongoing obligations in its largest market. These are not one-time events; they are structural costs of the growth strategy.
Sellers Are Moving — But Read the Fine Print
The seller-side data supports the migration narrative with an important twist. Marketplace Pulse's research reported that Amazon's new seller registrations fell 44% in 2025 to about 165,000 — the lowest since it began tracking — while a large share of departing Amazon sellers (reported figures cluster around 30–35% of Temu's seller base) came from Amazon. The reasons are well documented: Amazon's all-in fee stack (commission 15–20%, plus storage, ads, and platform fees — often approaching half of revenue) versus Temu's lower commissions (roughly 8–12%) with no storage fees and traffic support.
The fine print: lower fees and more traffic help, but Temu's economics reward different skills — landing cost control, lean operations, and thin margins at scale. Sellers who move to Temu without reworking their unit economics usually end up with more orders and less profit.
What This Trend Means for You as a Temu Seller
Whether or not the 2035 prediction lands, the direction is clear enough: Temu's share of cross-border order volume is still growing, and the price-sensitive traffic that makes it work is not shrinking. For a seller, that has three practical implications:
1. Price is the game, so landed cost is everything. If Temu's model is built on being ~30–50% cheaper, your margin lives or dies on how precisely you control landed cost. Run your real numbers through the Temu Tariff & Landed Cost Calculator before you price anything — the tariff and freight shocks of 2025 proved that a guessed cost becomes a loss the moment policy changes.
2. Volume grows, but ad efficiency decides who keeps the profit. As more sellers pile into a growing platform, the ones who win are those who know their Temu Break-even ACoS and refuse to bid past it.
3. The fully-managed vs. semi-managed choice is a strategy decision, not a convenience. Fully-managed trades control for simplicity; semi-managed trades work for margin and tariff resilience. Model both before you commit with the Temu Semi vs. Full Managed Calculator.
The Verdict: Plausible, Not Inevitable
The 2035 prediction rests on three facts that check out — the 24% order-share parity, the ~50% vs. ~12% growth gap, and a lighter operating model — and on one assumption that does not: that tariff, regulatory, and competition risks stay manageable. Order share can overtake Amazon's first (the IPC-style data already shows parity); GMV overtaking is a question of years, not certainty, because the base gap is roughly 10×.
For a seller, the right read is neither "Temu wins, go all-in" nor "this is hype, ignore it." It is: the platform's growth is real, its economics are thin by design, and the sellers who profit are the ones who control cost, know their ad ceiling, and choose their operating model deliberately. The tools to do that are all in the Temu seller toolkit.
Data sources: International Post Corporation cross-border e-commerce research (24% order share); Sensor Tower app-market data and broker research reports (MAU, downloads, GMV); Similarweb e-commerce rankings (site traffic, app MAU); Marketplace Pulse (Amazon seller registrations, GMV estimates); and public reporting on US tariff policy and EU regulatory actions. Where sources disagree (e.g., MAU counts), the article states both figures and the differing methodology rather than picking one. GMV and share figures are analyst estimates, not audited financials.
