What is a cash flow waterfall?

A cash flow waterfall is a bar chart that walks from operating cash flow through capital expenditure to free cash flow, then shows how the remaining cash is allocated — acquisitions, buybacks, dividends, debt, and other financing — ending at the net change in cash. Each step is colour-coded: green bars add to the running total, red bars subtract.

How does PDD Holdings (PDD) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q1 2026, PDD Holdings generated 108B CNY of operating cash flow and 108B CNY of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 100% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did PDD Holdings (PDD) return via buybacks and dividends?

The waterfall shows buybacks (share repurchases) and dividends paid as separate steps in the financing section. Together these represent PDD Holdings's shareholder returns for TTM through Q1 2026. You can compare these against free cash flow to assess the capital-return payout ratio.

PDD Holdings (PDD) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

108B CNY

Capex

0.00 CNY

Free Cash Flow

108B CNY

FCF Margin

+100.0%

Cash flow waterfall for PDD Holdings (PDD) — TTM through Q1 2026

Free cash flow: 108B CNY

Note: Other Investing is large — driven mainly by purchases or sales of investments.

Cash flow breakdown for PDD Holdings (PDD) — TTM through Q1 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	108B CNY	108B CNY
Capital Expenditure	0.00 CNY	108B CNY
Free Cash Flow	108B CNY	108B CNY
Other Investing	-35B CNY	72.9B CNY
Other Financing	-5.23B CNY	67.7B CNY
Forex Effect	-3.69B CNY	64B CNY
Net Cash Increase	64B CNY	64B CNY

Operating Cash Flow108B CNY
Capital Expenditure0.00 CNY
Free Cash Flow108B CNY
Other Investing-35B CNY
Other Financing-5.23B CNY
Forex Effect-3.69B CNY
Net Cash Increase64B CNY

Want to see what drove the FCF change?Free Cash Flow Bridge

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