Mercado Libre tops ranking of LatAm companies

Saturday, August 3rd 2024 - 09:13 UTC

Full article

“We had to do it... and we did it,” Galperín wrote on X after celebrating the company's 25th anniversary

Mercado Libre, the company founded by Argentine entrepreneur Marcos Galperin, once again became the most valuable in Latin America with a market price exceeding US$ 90 billion, thus outperforming Petrobras (US$ 87.64 billion), Itaú (US$ 56.5 billion) and Walmart Mexico (US$ 54.95 billion).

The key to the e-commerce and financial services company's climb was its robust performance in the second quarter of this year, which caused its shares to rise 10.59%. Mercado Libre's ADRs are the only ones that have good yields on Wall Street, it was reported.

In its last balance sheet, Mercado Libre posted a 42% growth in sales and a 103% increase in net income, reaching US$ 531 million. Net income was US$ 5.1 billion in the second quarter, above the market estimate of US$ 4.7 billion.

The fintech segment continued to grow with total payment volume (TPV) recording a 36% year-on-year increase. In terms of logistics, Mercado Libre shipped 416 million items in the second quarter of this year, improving 30% interannually.

“We had to do it... and we did it,” Galperín wrote on X after celebrating the company's 25th anniversary.

Mercado Libre currently has 60,000 workers. It began as a platform for buying and selling products and then developed financial services such as the virtual wallet Mercado Pago, very popular in Argentina and Uruguay. It also has some 52 million active users in its fintech division.