Latin America’s leading e-commerce company

Its track record of innovation and strong execution has led to consistent growth in sales, gross merchandise value and market share over the years. This has been backed by strong cash flow generation (as its asset-light model doesn’t require much working capital), which it can reinvest into the business to strengthen the franchise. 

Today, the company has an estimated e-commerce market share of 35-40% in Brazil and Mexico and 70+% in Argentina. Even with the end of Covid, the number of active buyers continues to grow, thanks to the company’s innovations in reducing shopping friction. We expect growth to sustain. The fintech business, which includes merchant payment solutions and digital banking for individuals and small business owners, has achieved credible scale but there is still untapped potential in its key markets. In Mexico, for example, less than 20% of the population owns a credit card while 80% of payments are still made in cash. MercadoLibre has been investing in this area for at least ten years, targeting the bottom of the income pyramid, where the opportunity is largest in terms of the potential number of customers as well as the room to provide add-on banking services. By learning to underwrite credit profitably to this group of clients, it will also become easier for MercadoLibre to subsequently grant credit to higher-income segments. We expect the fintech operations to remain a key contributor to the group’s overall growth strategy.