Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Pinduoduo's fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session, at which time, if you wish to ask the question, you will need to press star one on your telephone. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today. I would now like to hand the conference over to your host for today's conference, Mr. Chong Fung. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. My name is Chen, and I will help host the earnings call. Pinduoduo's earnings release was distributed earlier and is available on our website at investor.pinduoduo.com, as well as through GlobeNewswire services. Before we begin, I would like to refer you to our safe harbor statement in earnings press release, which applied to this call, as we will make certain forward-looking statements. Also, this call contains discussion of certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our earnings release, which contains a reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures to GAAP measures. Joining us today on the call are Chen Lei, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Liu Jun, our VP of Finance. Lei will make some general remarks on our performance for the past quarter and fiscal year 2021, and our strategic focus.
Jun will then take us through our key operating and financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ending December 31, 2021. During the Q&A session, Lei will answer the questions in Chinese and I will help translate. Please kindly note that all translations provided are for reference purpose only. In case of any discrepancy between the original remarks and the translated version, statements in the original language should prevail. Now it is my pleasure to introduce our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Chen Lei. Lei, please go ahead.
Thank you, Chen, and thank you, everyone. Thank you for joining us on our earnings call for the fourth quarter and the fiscal year of 2021. Let me first recap our results in Q4 and full year 2021. Our total revenue in the fourth quarter, excluding revenue for merchandise sales, was RMB 27.1 billion. This represents a year-on-year increase of 28%. Our annual active buyers reached 868.7 million for the 12 months ending on December 31, with 733.4 million average quarterly MAU. Our GMV in 2021 was RMB 2,441 billion, representing 46% year-on-year growth. Total revenue for 2021, excluding revenue from merchandise sales, was RMB 86.7 billion, representing 61% growth year-on-year.
2021 was a year of transition for Pinduoduo. Over the course of the year, during which I took over the role of chairman, we shifted our priority from sales and marketing toward research and development. I'm glad to see that this shift is well on track. It will lay a solid foundation for us over the long run. We are grateful for our users' continued trust and support. To keep up with their evolving and increasingly multidimensional preferences, we constantly ask ourselves how we can serve them better. As a team with engineering background, our focus has always been to use technology to benefit all. We were fortunate to be early in identifying opportunities to contribute to and create value in agriculture. Agriculture is a sector that touches everyone's daily life, yet has low levels of digitalization.
Since Pinduoduo's establishment in 2015, we have been facilitating agricultural modernization and digital inclusion. An efficient, resilient, sustainable, and vibrant agricultural sector benefits all the stakeholders in the value chain, and we remain focused on our goal. In 2021, we deepened our agricultural digital inclusion efforts in various ways, and they include, one, helping farmers to expand their access to the market. Two, advancing the use of smart agriculture. Three, encouraging and enable more young and tech-savvy talent into agricultural sector. Now let me elaborate. In the downstream, we continue to bring farmers into a digital economy by expanding their market access. We are working hard to be the platform that effectively matches consumer demand with agricultural production across the country.
This enables farmers to ship their fresh and perishable agri-food products directly to consumers, bypassing layers of distribution to deliver in a shorter timeframe. The result is higher income for farmers, lower prices for consumers, and the fresher produce consumers receive. Our platform has opened up a market of nearly 850 million users, buyers, and agri-producers in China directly. In order to provide them with a better tool to promote their unique production capabilities. One commitment we have is our zero commission policy of agricultural products. We waive sales commissions and proactively promote orders for agricultural products. We plan to continue this zero commission policy for agricultural products. We aim to create a virtuous cycle like what we have done for SMEs in the past, in which farmers earn more while consumers get fresher and more affordable produce. To amplify its effectiveness, we launched numerous promotional events.
In 2021, we worked with various regions to create a series of agri-focused shopping festivals that introduced consumers across China to different regional specialties. We also collaborated with key partners, such as CCTV, to launch live streaming events to promote China's agricultural heritage. This event not only enhanced user awareness and appreciation of local specialties, enabled farmers to directly talk to consumers, understand consumers' preference better, which helped them in brand building and production upgrades for quality agricultural produce. For instance, we initiated an orange festival to promote high-quality orange specialties from 7 major orange produce areas across the country, bringing regional orange varieties to consumers nationwide. Benefiting from rising order volumes on our platform, local orange farmers and agri-enterprises in Hunan Province witnessed a large increase in sales.
This increase in sales not only improved farmers' living standards, but also gave them confidence to invest into the future. Many of them reinvested their profits into developing better products, including in sorting machines and packaging design. Moving upstream, we are advancing adoption of agricultural technology to help growers improve their productivity. A few practical and affordable technologies came out of the inaugural Smart Agriculture Competition last year, including automated crop monitoring, program dynamics adjustment for changing climate conditions, and irrigation. We have several teams commercialize these technology solutions. Today, these solutions have been applied in major strawberry growing regions across China, such as Liaoning, Anhui, and Yunnan provinces. They have helped traditional growers more than double their management capacity. Such progress is inspiring and valuable to entire industry. We regularly organize knowledge-sharing sessions to encourage adoption of technology in this sector.
Earlier this month, we jointly hosted a share-sharing session with FAO China on harnessing smart agriculture to boost food production and security. Representatives from FAO, China Agricultural University, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Pinduoduo, and the finalists of the Smart Agriculture Competition presented their insights at a webinar. We are honored to work closely with world-class partners in agri-food sector, such as China Agricultural University, Zhejiang University, UN FAO, Singapore A*STAR, and Wageningen University. We look forward to cooperating with more like-minded organizations and individuals in the future. Another important prong of Pinduoduo's agricultural strategy focuses on encouraging and enabling more young and tech-savvy talent into the agricultural sector. We are glad to see more and more young agricultural entrepreneurs choosing to start their businesses with Pinduoduo.
As at end October 2021, over 126,000 young farming professionals born after 1995 have joined the Pinduoduo platform, from 85,700 in 2020 to 910 in 2021. Most of these young entrepreneurs are well-educated. They are digital natives who grew up with mobile technology. Therefore, they are used to buying things online and using innovations like live streaming. At the same time, many of them are motivated by the desire to contribute to their rural communities. To upskill them, we have offered dedicated training programs on necessary knowhow to operate their e-commerce businesses. We will devote more resources to support them, as we believe they will play a key role in facilitating agricultural modernization and rural vitalization.
Looking back on our efforts in agriculture, we are happy with the positive impact that we have generated. We have only scratched the surface in the field of technology advancement and digital inclusion in agriculture. Therefore, we are stepping up our investment in this sector as a long-term commitment. The focus of our long-term vision may not always translate into near-term results, but we will be patient as we do our part to contribute to agricultural modernization. As mentioned last year, I am personally overseeing our 10 Billion Agriculture Initiative, which aims to facilitate advancement of agri tech, promote digital inclusion, and provide agri tech talent with greater motivation and sense of achievement. Profits from this quarter will continue to be allocated to this initiative. Lastly, as a platform that serves over 868 million consumers, we are also shouldering more social responsibility.
In July, we rapidly respond to help with flood relief efforts in Henan, making donations and launching a portal to support emergency relief distribution. In October, we did the same to carry out emergency disaster relief and post-disaster construction work in Shanxi. In December, we contributed towards relief efforts in Xi'an and worked with the local government to maintain necessary provisions as they fought a COVID-19 outbreak. To support the rural communities, we launched door-to-door reading month. Today, we have donated carefully selected storybooks to rural communities around the country and organized reading programs. We hope that these efforts will broaden the horizon of the youth and contribute to a better future to their community. As we step into another year, we remain laser focused on our goals and we continue to do our best to serve all our stakeholders.
I would like to thank you all in advance for your continued support. Now, let me pass the mic to Jun Liu. Jun Liu has been with us since 2017, and has been recently promoted to VP of Finance as part of our plan to grow more young generation leaders. Jun Liu, please.
Thank you, Lei. Hello, everyone. Nice meeting you here. Let me first walk you through our operating results for the fourth quarter and basically ending December 31, 2021. Our MAU for the twelve months ending December 31, 2021 was 868.7 million. This is an increase of 80.3 million from end 2020 or 1.4 million from the twelve months ending September 30, 2021. In Q4, we observed a quarter-over-quarter decline of the MAU. Average MAU in Q4 was 733.4 million. This is a 13.5 million increase from the same quarter in 2020 or an 8.1 million decline from Q3 2021.
At our current scale, we are approaching the limits in term of user number and do not see it as a meaningful driver of future growth. To us, it is more important to focus on meeting our existing users evolving needs and to serve them in the best way that we can. Our GMV for the last twelve months ending December 31, 2021 was RMB 2,441 billion, an increase of 46% compared to 2020. Average annual spending per active buyer for the last twelve months ending December 31, 2021, which is the result of GMV divided by the number of active buyers over the same period, increased 33% year over year to RMB 2,810. We are encouraged by their growing trust and are committed to serve them better.
Last year, our platform generated a total of 61 billion orders, an increase of 59% from a year ago. In line with that step up focus and the resources on agriculture, as average order value for agricultural products is lower. This resulted in a decrease in AOV over the same period. Our AOV came down 8% to RMB 40 in 2021 as compared to RMB 44 in 2020. The average number of orders per active buyer was 70 in 2021, an increase of 45% from 2020. We're glad to see that our investment in agriculture is addressing our users' real needs. We plan to deepen our efforts in agriculture. Next, I will go through our financial performance in the quarter ended December 31, 2021.
In terms of P&L, our total revenue in the quarter was RMB 27.2 billion, up 3% from RMB 26.5 billion in the same quarter of 2020. This was mainly driven by an increase in revenues from online marketing services and revenue from transaction services, offset by decrease in revenue from 1P trials. Excluding revenue from our 1P trials, our total revenue was RMB 27.1 billion in Q4 2021, up 28% from RMB 21.2 billion in the same quarter 2020. Revenue from online services and others, RMB 24 billion this quarter, up 9% compared to same quarter of 2020. This was primarily due to increased merchant activity, a testament to our platform capability to help them target customers effectively and efficiently.
Our transaction services revenue this quarter were RMB 4.7 billion, up 108% compared with the same period of 2020. The increase in our transaction services revenues was due to, first, the increase in total transaction processing fees as a result of higher GMV. Second, more diversified services that we provide to merchants, such as fulfillment services. Moving on to cost and expenses. Our total cost of revenue decreased from RMB 11.5 billion in Q4 2020 to RMB 6.5 billion this quarter. The decrease came mainly from the reduction of 1P trials and decreased server costs due to a one-off rebate, offset by increased fulfillment fees. Total operating expenses this quarter were RMB 13.8 billion, compared with RMB 17.1 billion in the same quarter of 2020.
On a non-GAAP basis, our total operating expenses as a percentage of revenue, excluding 1P, has been declined from 94% to 76% to 45% for Q4 of 2019, 2020, and 2021 respectively. As we observed lower user and top line growth, we proactively controlled our expenses. This resulted in lower operating expenses in the quarter. As we face more competition from existing and new players, we expect relevant expense items to increase in the future. Looking at specific expense items. Our non-GAAP sales and marketing expenses this quarter, RMB 10.8 billion, down 25% versus the same quarter of 2020. As we continue to shift away from our previous focus on sales and marketing. On top of this, as I mentioned, we further controlled our expenses in the face of slower user and revenue growth.
As a result, on a non-GAAP basis, our sales and marketing expenses as a percentage of our revenues in this quarter was 40%, compared with 84% and 54% for the same quarter in 2019 and in 2020. Our non-GAAP general and administrative expenses were RMB 195.8 million, compared with RMB 153.1 million in the same quarter of 2020. Our non-GAAP research and development expenses were RMB 1.3 billion, a decline of 16% from RMB 1.6 billion in the same quarter of 2020. The decrease in non-GAAP R&D expenses was due to a one-off rebate from one of our service providers. If we take out impact of this rebate, R&D expenses will have risen. We do not expect a rebate to recur.
As a result, operating profit for the quarter was RMB 6.9 billion on a GAAP basis, compared with operating loss of RMB 2 billion in the same quarter of 2020. Non-GAAP operating profit was RMB 8.4 billion, compared with operating loss of RMB 1.1 billion in the same quarter of 2020. Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders was RMB 6.6 billion, compared with a net loss of RMB 1.4 billion in the same quarter of 2020. Basic earnings per ADS was RMB 5.26, and the diluted earnings per ADS was RMB 4.66, compared with basic and diluted net loss per ADS of RMB 1.13 in the same quarter of 2020.
non-GAAP net income attributable to ordinary shareholders was RMB 8.4 billion, compared with a net loss of RMB 184.5 million in the same quarter last year. non-GAAP diluted earnings per ADS was RMB 5.88, compared with non-GAAP diluted net loss per ADS of RMB 0.15 in the same quarter of 2020. To conclude, profitability in the past quarter was mainly attributed to, first, controlled spending in the face of slow growth. second, reduction of costs and expenses due to one-off rebates. We expect profits to fluctuate as we continue to invest in the agriculture space, including agricultural technology. As I mentioned in previous quarters, we are also facing more competition. Therefore, we do not expect the profitability in Q4 to serve as a benchmark for the following quarters.
Similar to previous quarters, profits from this quarter will be allocated to the 10 Billion Agriculture Initiative. That completes the profit and loss statements for the fourth quarter of 2021. Our net cash flow provided by operating activities was CNY 16.4 billion, compared with CNY 14.9 billion in the same quarter of 2020. As of December 31, 2021, the company has CNY 92.9 billion in cash equivalents, and short-term investments. With that, I conclude my prepared remarks.
Thank you, June. Next, we will move on to the Q&A session. For today's Q&A session, Lei and June will take questions from analysts on the line. We could take a maximum of two questions per analyst. Lei will answer questions in Chinese, and I will help translate Lei's remarks for easier reference. Operator will now take questions on the line.
As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question is from Thomas Chong with Jefferies. Your line is open.
Thanks, management, for taking my questions. My first question is more about the macro uncertainties that we are facing. How should we think about the impact to the consumers as well as to Pinduoduo? My second question is about our CNY 10 billion agriculture initiatives. Can management comment about the progress so far, the P&L impact, this year KPI, as well as of course if there will be a step up in investment going forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Thomas, for your questions. Let me take your questions. You ask about macro economy. Well, for us, we always look internally and see what areas we can improve through technology. For us, a big area is agriculture.
让消费者吃到更新鲜、更实惠的农副产品，同时减少浪费。
There are many aspects and areas in agriculture that we can improve. In production, we can increase yield, reduce the environmental impact and also help farmers get higher and stable income. In terms of consumption, through our efforts, we can provide consumers with fresher and more affordable agricultural produce and reduce waste at the same time.
另外一个呢，也是我们比较感兴趣的，在流通的方面呢，我们是可以通过这个技术呢，提升农产品的流通效率，完善了农村的这个物流体系。
In addition, another area of interest for us is in distribution. We can use technology to improve the distribution efficiency of agricultural produce and also strengthen the rural logistics system.
就是在这个农业这样一个这么基础的行业呢，我们就可以看到呢，这么多的机会，我觉得这也反映了我们对这个市场和未来的发展呢，应该说是充满信心的。
In the agriculture sector alone, which is so fundamental and crucial, we see so many opportunities. This reflects that we remain confident about the potential of the industry and future development.
但是，这个农业的投入，是需要一个时间过程的。因此，我们也是非常地需要有耐心吧。
Investment in agriculture take time and the process is gradual, so we have to be very patient in the process.
那么这个就是比较，我觉得是比较自然地就引到了你问的第二个问题，是有关这个百亿农业。那，这个百亿农业专项呢，是我们在去年Q2业绩会的时候公布的。
With that, this naturally brings us to your next question on our 10 Billion Agriculture Initiative. We announced the 10 Billion Agriculture Initiative in Q2 last year.
百亿农业呢，当时我们也说到，这个是不是以商业价值或者盈利为目的。其实呢，它主要是面向农业以及乡村的重大需求。就是在投资方面呢，我们希望是说这个百亿农业专项呢，能够致力于推动农业科技的进步、科技的普惠，以及提升这个农业科技工作者和劳动者的前进动力和获得感，这些是我们百亿农业的目标。
For this initiative, profitability or commercial value is not the aim. Well, we hope that this initiative can address the critical needs in the agriculture sector and rural areas. As for where we would put our investment in, I hope this initiative can facilitate the advancement of AgriTech, promote digital inclusion and also give more motivation and a sense of achievement to Agri talents and workers.
其实我们希望百亿农业项目能够最大化地推动农业科技的进步以及普惠。那我们一直也在非常谨慎地甄选和评估各种项目的推荐和建议，也在结合我们在农业领域积累的经验，以及我们这个团队的这种技术背景来衡量项目。
We really hope the 10 Billion Agriculture Initiative can maximize its potential and impact in the advancement of AgriTech and digital inclusion. Therefore, we are diligently evaluating different proposals and projects, and make those evaluations based upon our past experiences in agriculture as well as our technical background.
那这里呢，其实我可以举几个例子给大家分享一下我们现在在关注的领域。
Here I can also share some examples of our focus areas.
有一个呢，就是，Lei也说到了，就是如何通过科技的手段提升这个流通的效率，那么如何让农产品在物流科技上呢，实现这个降低运输时间，然后减少对环境的影响。以及呢，如何让高科技在农业生产上呢，就不仅仅能够提升效率，同时也能够提升这个农产品的品质。
Some examples, some of which I have mentioned include that how to improve distribution efficiency through technology, how to reduce the transportation time, as well as reduce the environmental impact with logistic technology, and also how to use technology in production to improve the efficiency as well as quality.
那么如何用这个技术，赋能这个就是农业这个行业链条上的多个环节，这是一个，这个长期的需要耐心付出的这样一个工程。那我们目前仍然处于这个过程的早期，那也希望大家能够多一些耐心。那随着我们的投入，我们也会和大家一起，分享这个更多的有关百亿农业的进展。希望这些信息能够回答到你的这个提问。
To use technology to enable different links along the agriculture value chain is really a long term project that requires long term dedication and patience. We are still in the early days of this. I hope everybody can have more patience as we invest. We also look forward to share with you our progress on the 10 Billion Agriculture Initiative, and hope what I have said has addressed your question.
谢谢。
Operator, we may take a question from the next one on the phone line.
Our next question comes from Yang Bai with CICC. Your line is open.
好，谢谢管理层。我第一个问题是有关行业的竞争啊。我们知道公司一直都是比较关注自己为用户提供的这个价值，而不太就是考虑外部的竞争对手。所以能不能从这个角度展开为我们讲一下，接下来我们都是认为在哪些方面的一个投入和完善可以帮公司获得一个更好的竞争力。然后我第二个问题呢，想问我们的品牌化，因为从过去来看的话，性价比的定位呢，是我们平台的优势。但到了一定的这个阶段后呢，好像性价比它似乎成为了这个品牌化路上的一种障碍。想问一下管理层怎么去看待我们未来的品牌化的这个战略。Thank you management for taking my question. My first question is regarding to the future competitive landscape. I notice that Pinduoduo always focus more on the value to consumers instead of pressure from competitor. So from your perspective, what is needed or what kind of improvement should be emphasized for the company to make the cut?
My second question is regarding to your branding strategy. For the past six years, Pinduoduo was very distinguished from other competitors, especially for your value for money merchandise. However, when it comes to branding, it seems that the past advantage is kind of becoming the bottleneck. I'd like to know your future strategy, how to efficiently help brand business in Pinduoduo's platform. Thank you.
好，谢谢白杨，谢谢你的问题，我这里也做一下解答吧。首先有关于竞争的话，那我觉得是说，拼多多从创立的第一天开始，就一直在处于一个竞争非常激烈的行业。那么中国的电商，是一个很大的行业，而且也一直是一个激烈竞争的行业。
Thank you Yang Bai for your question. I will share my views on those fronts. As for competition, since the day Pinduoduo was established, we are in this highly competitive space and China e-commerce space is a huge industry and it has always been highly competitive.
我们现在能看到，更多的大平台进入了电商这个领域，那么他们为消费者提供了不同的选择。我觉得随着技术的升级，消费者的需求也必然会做进一步的迭代。我们预计还会不断地有新的形式和平台企业加入到这个电商行业。
We now see more large platforms entering e-commerce, and they provide different options to consumers. As technology continues to upgrade, consumers needs will also continue to evolve, and we expect more engagement formats will emerge and more platform companies will join e-commerce.
那么正如你在这个问题里面提到的，的确我们内部觉得呢，我们更应该关注的是用户，就是说我们能否就是本分地服务好用户，那么呢，能够给用户呢，带来不同的这种多实惠啊、多乐趣的这种购物体验。那么这个呢，是我们这家企业的本分，那我们的确呢，不会过多地去关注竞争，竞争的对手是谁。
As you have mentioned in your question internally, we would focus on users and whether we are serving their needs well. We target to offer users a unique more savings, more fun shopping experience. This is our company's benefit. Indeed we do not focus too much on competition.
在过去一段时间里面，我认为我们在了解以及跟进用户的行为和需求变化这一方面，是有很大的可以改进的空间的。应该承认，很多竞争对手在很多方面做得比我们好，那这个是我们需要向他们学习的。
With that said, I think over the past period of time in terms of understanding and catching up with directly changing user needs and addressing their needs effectively and efficiently, there is still plenty of room for us to improve. Admittedly, many of our competitors have done a better job in some of these aspects, and we need to learn from them.
那尤其在这种竞争加剧的环境下，我们需要从自身去找原因，提升自身的服务，去提高用户的满意度，这个是我们希望去做的。那我在几个季度前也提到了，是说这个拼多多不可能一直完美地做到最好。那么在这个调整团队和方向，过去的年，我们也难免会放慢一些步伐吧，那这也都是一个公司成长的过程。
Especially under intensified competition, we still need to look into ourselves on how to do better, improve our services and raise our user satisfaction. I also mentioned a few quarters ago that 拼多多 cannot always be perfect or be the best, and we will inevitably slow down as we go through transition in leadership and when we make adjustments. These are all part of a company's development.
但是另外一方面呢，我们现在呢，也选择了对这个农业进行更多的投入，那这个其实是不同于这个纯的这个线上的互联网业务。那在这个领域内部呢，其实需要我们有更加的耐心。
In addition, we have chosen to invest in agriculture and this is different from a pure internet technology. In this sector, we need to be more patient with our investment due to its nature.
那么，我们会继续地投入农业。因为看到，其实相比于那些更早线上化、更高线上化率的品类或者方向来说，农业整体的线上化率仍然很低。其实，有很多现有的体验下，用户的很多需求并没有被满足，并没有人能提供比较好的方案来满足。这也是为什么我们在坚定不移地投入农业、发展农业科技的核心技术，从而推进农业科技的普惠这样一个原因。
We will continue to invest in agriculture. We see that compared with categories that have been digitized earlier or categories that now have higher online penetration rate, the online penetration rate for agriculture is still very low, and on the existing fulfillment experience, many consumer needs have not been met. This is why we are investing in agriculture and with our investments as well as in core agricultural technology with the goal to promote AgriTech and digital inclusion.
那么对于这个公司中长期的发展，我和我的团队都是充满信心的。当然，这种信心能否真实地转化为实际的成绩，我觉得这核心还是需要我们团队里面所有的人一起坚持不懈的努力。
For our company's mid to long term development outlook, my team and I are confident. At the same time, in order for our confidence to translate into actual results, we need dedication and hard work from everybody in our team.
那么关于你的这个第二个问题，就是有关品牌，那我觉得是这样的，就是我们现在整个平台有8.7亿的用户，那么他们的需求应该说是越来越多样化，那我们也希望是说能够满足这个用户，那么在我们的平台上获得这个更好用户体验的这种希望，那品牌肯定是其中的一部分。
As for your next question on brand, our platform now has nearly 870 million users. Their needs is continuing to diversify. We hope to satisfy our users needs and also give them a better shopping experience on our platform. In this process, brand is definitely one part that we need to work on.
但是品牌来平台开店，也并不是这种立竿见影的，这是需要时间来磨合的。本质上，我觉得我们和品牌方最终的目标其实都是一致的，那就是服务好消费者。所以说，我们会耐心、踏实地做好我们自己应该做也能够做到的事情。
However, store opening does not happen overnight. Instead, it takes time. Essentially, I believe that the ultimate goal, for brands and for us are the same, and that is to serve consumers well. We will continue to be very patient and, down to earth to do, our part within our capability and what we should do.
在整个这种合作的过程中，我们也看到这样一个趋势，那就是先看到机遇、先选择相信的品牌，能获得较高的回报，从而带动和吸引了更多的品牌来了解和尝试。
In this process of cooperation, we see a trend that brands who sees opportunities first would generate higher returns. This would in turn attract more brands to learn more about us and seek collaboration.
至于说更多的品牌是否会导致更高的ARPU或者AOV，就是客单、订单价，这并不是我们看重的，我们还是要看我们用户的满意度。我们坚信，秉承这样普惠、人为先、更开放的理念，会对品牌、对用户和我们平台都会有这种持续的正面的影响。
As for whether more brands would help increase the ARPU or AOV, that is not our core focus. Instead, we focus on user satisfaction. We will stick to our principles of benefit all, people first, and more open. I believe this would have a positive impact on brands, users as well as our platform.
谢谢。
Operator, we may now take question from next analyst.
Our next question comes from Joyce Ju with Bank of America. Your line is open.
Good evening, Lei, Jun, and Chen, and congrats on the solid quarter and thanks for taking my questions. My first question is, first we have seen continued leverage and decline in sales and marketing expenses this quarter. Is there any specific reason, this quarter which lead to the company to further control the sales and marketing spending, or it's simply an improvement on your sales and marketing ROI? And my second question is, PDD has delivered another quarter of strong profits. Could you share with us how management team are looking at the balance between profitability and growth? Are we seeing a pivot in strategic priority? Also, how should we expect the future profitability trends? And how much was the one-time rebate that contribute to this quarter's higher profitability?
我来翻译一下我的问题。我的第一个问题是，有关于我们在这个季度看到的整体利润率和效率整体的提升，然后我们的市场营销费用，这个季度比例上面同比一直在下降。想问一下，就是说这个季度我们看到的这个下降是因为我们有什么特殊的情况，或者是我们看到什么样特殊的趋势，让我们对这个季度的市场投入做了一些控制，还是说是我们看到我们在这个市场投入上面的ROI有所提升。第二个问题的话，是有关于这个季度我们看到我们的利润呈现了一个非常强的趋势，而今年也已经第三个季度了。想要问一下，就是管理层怎么看待，就是说现在还有未来的话，在这个增长和这个利润率之间的平衡关系，从我们的战略重点上来说，我们是不是现在有一个调整，就是说从以前的增长为先，到现在可能利润我们现在也会看得更重一些。然后，我们投资人应该怎么样去考虑未来的这个利润率的趋势。还有刚刚我们也有提到，这个季度有一个一次性的反用，让我们这个季度的利润有所提升，想问一下大概是多大的贡献。非常感谢。
Thank you for your question, Joyce. Well, for sales and marketing expenses, you may see that we are actively changing our investment direction based on past quarters results. During Q1 to Q3 last year, our S&M expenses showed consecutive quarter-on-quarter decreases in terms of absolute RMB amount. In Q4, our selling and marketing expenses decreased by 23% YOY, which represented a 42% of revenues. Well, that is our lowest level in our history. We think it is a strategic shift. As Lei just mentioned, we need to focus and invest more in technological development, such as AI tech. Meanwhile, with slowing growth rate, we are more cautious, so we have proactively controlled expenses. This is also why you're seeing higher profitability margin in the past quarter.
Recent fluctuation in user activities and slowing revenue growth is a reflection that we are not doing well enough in terms of satisfying users' needs. Our team is working hard to explore how to meet user needs better and quicker. We think this will require continued investment and definitely, expense will very likely increase in the future. For the second question, which is about profitability, I would like to point out that we're not changing our strategy to focus on profitability. This quarter's higher profit was due to one-off rebate, as mentioned before, and controlled spending in the face of slower growth. To further elaborate on this, we are, as we encounter slow growth and are concurrently making adjustments, taking a cautious approach and proactively controlling our expenses.
On top of this, portion of this quarter's profit was due to a cost and expense reduction related to a one-off rebate from our service provider. This one-off rebate has resulted in a lower cost and expenses and higher profitability in the quarter. If we strip out the one-off rebate, costs and expenses will be higher than the reporting number, and profitability in the quarter will also be lower. Second, as competition intensifies and user demand becomes more diversified, we do expect continuing investment in agriculture and the core technology, which will result in higher expense line items, hence impacting profitability. In your question, you also emphasized the rebates. I think the one-off rebates, yes, it's one-off nature. It is based on a case-by-case negotiation with our service providers.
We do not expect it will recur in the future. For the amounts, due to confidentiality obligation with the service provider, we could not comment on the specific amounts. What we can say is that it contributed a meaningful portion of this quarter's profits.
Thanks.
We have time to take question from one more analyst.
Our last question comes from Kenneth Fong with Credit Suisse. Your line is open.
Hi. Thank you, management for taking my question. I have a question on the online market service revenue, which in Q4 recorded a slower growth rate of only 19% compared with the previous quarters. What's the reason behind? Is this mainly due to a slower GMV growth or due to change in take rate policies? And have we carried out more merchant support measures in the recent quarter that also depress our take rate? And as an investor, how should we think about the growth outlook for first quarter and then the next two quarters? Thank you.
Kenneth, let me take your question and offer some insight on our revenue growth, and then June will supplement with some insights on take rate. First of all, for us to reach our current scale, investors should not expect continuous and ultra-high growth.
未来的增长还是需要有策略性和结构性的进化。因此从去年开始，我们就在调整部分的发展策略，更加地关注农业和核心科技，追求一种长期的高质量的发展。这难免会对增速有所影响。
As for our future growth, I believe we need a strategic upgrade, and we also went through adjustment last year to focus more on agriculture and core technology in order to pursue a long-term high quality development.
比如说，我们会关注这个如何利用这种核心技术在农业中提高效率、减少浪费，消费者买到更实惠、更优质的农产品的同时，帮助农户增产创收，享受到农产品上行的好处。那我们相信，对这种核心科技的关注和投入是具有一种长远的价值的。
For example, we are looking to how to apply our core technology to improve the efficiency and reduce waste in agriculture so that consumer can get affordable and high quality produce, and farmers at the same time can increase yield, enjoy improvements in income, and benefit from digital inclusion. We believe our focus in agriculture and investment in core technology creates long-term value.
那么呢，我们有幸呢有这种8.7亿的消费者呢，就是选择相信这个拼多多。那么呢，如何持续地服务好我们现有的消费者，满足他们的这个日益变化的这个需求，让他们呢对拼多多满意呢，这个是我们长期关注的。那么过去的一年呢，市场上应该说是涌现出了很多不同的平台以及呢这个电商模式。那么刚才我也说到了，这些都是我们需要多学习、多借鉴。那另外一方面也提醒了我们呢，其实呢内部除外，是从节奏、从这个组织结构上呢需要快速地迭代，就更多的年轻一代的管理层和核心团队。
We are fortunate to have nearly 870 million customers who choose to believe in us. To serve our users well, address their constantly and changing needs, and improve their satisfaction level is our long-term focus. In the past year, we have seen many different platforms entering e-commerce as well as new e-commerce formats. As I have said, we need to learn from them and also improve our services. It also serves as a good reminder for us to iterate and promote more young talent to our management team and to keep up with the market development.
但这些业务的发展和调整呢，要带来效果是需要时间的。那么在这个过程中呢，我们的增速呢可能会受到一定的影响。那在我们整个公司发展的过程中呢，也可以看到说业务周期和财报周期呢也并不是平滑对应的。那我也建议投资者不要用这样一个季度的财报啊来预测下一个季度的增长速度。
For these adjustments to show results, it takes time. In the process, our growth rate may be affected. As we develop, you may see that our business cycle and financial reporting cycle do not necessarily correspond smoothly to each other. We do not recommend investors to use one quarter of results to predict the next.
那June可以帮忙回答一下就是有关take rate的一些问题。
Now Jun Liu may help supplement with some insights on take rate.
Okay. Thank you Kenneth. As you mentioned about SME. Before I answer your question about the take rate, I would like to talk more about SME. As we started Pinduoduo with our corporate principles of benefit all, people first and more open. In addition, agriculture is our core and many agriculture merchants are SME merchants themselves. We have always been looking for ways to support SME merchants and the products. For take rate, well, it's not metric that we focus on. In the past 3 quarters, as you already know, that we continue to implement the zero commission policy on agricultural products. We actively extend support to agriculture merchants and SME merchants and offer more exposure and traffic to agricultural products. All of this would affect our take rates, that's what we have done and are doing.
In the long run, our revenue and monetization depends on how much value we create. As we, as our user experience and user mind share improve, our platform could provide more value to merchants, and merchants will find investments on our platform more attractive as a result. I think as the percentage of our agriculture products have increases, the monetization rates are likely to grow at the same pace as our scale. To us, serving our user well is our number one priority. As mentioned before, agriculture is Pinduoduo's core and strategic direction and we will stick to it.
Thank you. Very clear.
Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to Chen Pan for closing remarks.
All right. Thank you everybody for joining us on the conference call today. If you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to our team. Thank you. Have a great day.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.