South Korea’s Coupang Inc. announced on 11th May that its total revenues surpassed USD 5 billion during the first quarter, as the e-commerce giant narrowed losses during the three months ending 31st March.
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The Seoul-based company said total net revenues reached USD 5.1 billion, up 22 percent year over year, and up 32 percent on a constant currency basis. Likewise, Coupang said revenues lifted 3 percent quarter over quarter.
By segment, product commerce net revenues totalled USD 4.9 billion, up 20 percent compared to last year, and 30 percent on a constant currency basis, over three times the growth rate of the Korean product e-commerce segment, the company said in a press release.
“Powered by our unmatched customer experience and services, we continued to grow at multiples of the overall e-commerce segment with 32 percent year over year constant currency revenue growth,” said Gaurav Anand, CFO of Coupang.
“We also recorded the highest gross profit and gross profit margin in the company’s history, which in turn helped our product commerce segment to achieve profitability in Q1. We expect our focus on customer-driven innovations as well as operational excellence to continue to bear fruit in the quarters and years ahead,” added Anand.
Coupang said net losses narrowed to USD 209.3 million during the quarter, compared to USD 295 million for the same quarter in the prior year, a shrinkage of 29 percent.
Likewise, Coupang managed to notch a USD 194 million improvement from its fourth quarter 2021 in its adjusted EBITDA.
The company said its first quarter adjusted EBITDA was a loss of USD 91 million, an improvement of loss of USD 132.9 million a year earlier.
Looking ahead, Coupang said it expects to see more benefits coming from economies of scale, and its ability to invest either in software and hardware automation and efficiency projects will help grow.
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In March, SoftBank Vision Fund, Coupang’s largest investor, sold 50 million shares worth USD 1 billion for USD 20.87 each in Coupang. That came after the Japanese fund sold Coupang shares worth USD 1.69 billion in September 2021, according to filings to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.