EUR 91.05 For Business Accounts Only

Coupang Pre-IPO

Coupang, one the largest product e-commerce players in Korea, aims to raise around US$3bn in its US listing via a mix of selling primary and secondary shares. The company has earlier obtained investments from Sequoia, Softbank, Blackrock and Fidelity, as per media reports.

Coupang offers its 14.8m customers a wide range of owned-inventory selection. In addition, on its marketplace it also offers millions of SKUs sourced from over 200,000 merchants. Apart from normal e-commerce operation, it also provides its customers with: grocery offering, Rocket Fresh; logistics food delivery offering, Coupang Eats; and digital financial services, Coupang Pay.

Coupang’s revenue grew by 2.9x over FY18-20, with bulk of that growth coming in FY20 when revenue grew by 91% YoY. Over the same timeframe, gross profit expanded by 10.5x, and the company managed to narrow down its operating and net losses and turn operating cash flow positive. However, Coupang has not been very forthcoming with its operational data. Given its rapid growth it might not have too much room left for adding new customers. While its cash flow has barely turned positive, it has already lined up another new cash guzzling segment to enter, OTT.

We covered the deal background in our earlier note, Coupang Pre-IPO - Fast Growth, sticky customers but horrendous data disclosures, including no mention of OTT launch. In this note we will talk about the local competition landscape.