Horizontal bar chart comparing Mercado Libre's user base to country populations, showing it would be larger than all Latin American countries but Brazil and Mexico | Sources: Latinometrics
If MercadoLibre's Users Were a Country, They Would Be the 3rd Largest in LatAm

If Mercado Libre's users were a country, it would be bigger than all Latin American countries but Brazil and Mexico.

Most recent data from 11/22 of last year shows that Mercado Libre has grown its user base to a staggering 88.3M active users. Most of their users are divided almost evenly among the company's two major lines of business: Mercado Libre, their e-commerce platform with 42.5 million users, and Mercado Pago, their fintech business with 41.6 million users.

Over the past year, it achieved a growth rate of 12.2% for its total active users, with growth across its two lines of business. While e-commerce users increased by 9.6%, the bulk of the growth was driven by their fintech business, which grew by 31.7% in that same period. On Mercado Pago, unique wallet payers increased by 33.6% and investment accounts by 29%.

While these numbers are impressive, they are small compared to the revenue growth they brought. The company posted Q3 net revenues of $2.7B, a staggering 61% growth from the previous year. Similar to their users, both lines of business saw significant revenue growth, with e-commerce growing 33% and fintech leading the charge with an astonishing 115% increase.

Further, Mercado Libre seems to be getting most of its growth from its three core geographic markets. It saw revenue growths of 35%, 72%, and 60% in Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, respectively. Those three countries represented over 95% of their revenues in that period, meaning that they have been able to further penetrate their core markets to exceptional levels.

Clearly, the company's main growth driver has been Mercado Pago. This line of business has been growing exponentially. It's now on the verge of becoming larger than its e-commerce business. We at Latinometrics predict this will become a reality in 2023 (not a risky bet).

This week’s opportunity:

Mercado Libre (unsurprisingly) has a ton of open roles:

128 in Argentina 🇦🇷

74 in Brazil 🇧🇷

54 in Colombia 🇨🇴

53 in Mexico 🇲🇽

18 in Uruguay 🇺🇾

8 in Peru 🇵🇪

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