BUENOS AIRES, Sept 9 (Askume) – Latin American e-commerce giant MercadoLibre Inc (MELI.O) is just getting started, Chief Executive Marcos Galperin said. The region’s most valuable public company.
He expects to triple the number of users, expand online payments, use artificial intelligence (AI) and use drones to attract more buyers. The company is also offering fast loans to consumers and sellers on its platform, boosting sales.
“We have a lot of room for continued growth in e-commerce,” Galperin told Askume at the company’s office in Buenos Aires. He said he expected the number of users to grow to 300 million from about 1 billion now, but gave no specifics.
“We’ve really just scratched the surface of all the things we can do with our fintech platform, Mercado Pago. I think there’s a huge opportunity for Mercado Pago in the future.”
MercadoLibre, Latin America’s Amazon (AMZN.O) or China’s Alibaba (9988.HK) , has become the region’s most valuable public company, with a market value of more than $100 billion. Its shares are up nearly 1,600% in a decade and 26% this year.
However, Galperin said he is not losing sleep over the share price and is focused on growing the business in key markets such as Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Chile. He hopes to expand organically rather than through acquisitions.
“We don’t like buying market share, we like building market share,” he said. MercadoLibre ‘s profit doubled last quarter from a year earlier , helping it surpass the valuation of Brazilian state-owned energy producer Petrobras in August.
Argentina’s economy “transformed”
MercadoLibre is headquartered in an industrial area of Buenos Aires, just a few blocks from the original garage where Galperin co-founded the company 25 years ago and where he has now become an Internet billionaire and one of the region’s most influential entrepreneurs.
However, the country has struggled with recurrent economic crises, with rampant inflation ( now over 250% ), capital controls, sovereign defaults, and periodic recessions impacting domestic markets.
However, Galperin said he was returning to optimism, citing market-oriented policies introduced by new liberal President Javier Miley. USD Logistics Center Investments.
“We are optimistic about Argentina’s economy in the medium term. This motivates us to invest again,” he said, adding that growth in credit and slow monthly inflation were helping to boost consumer confidence and sales.
He said, “In the second quarter we saw an increase in transactions and sales of goods. So the economy is improving.” However, the improvement will take time.
Analysts pointed to concerns about credit quality as fintech unit Mercado Pago issued more loans and uncertainty over potential interest rate hikes in Brazil. Non-performing loans rose 1.6% in the second quarterdeclined , but remained at a high of 18.5%.
Still, Galperin said he was “very pleased” with the way the company was managing risk in Brazil and surrounding regions as it reaches millions of unbanked Latin Americans.
“As long as bad loans are under control, and they are, I think we’ll be fine.”
