Coupang to expand footprint by over 50% in Korea next year: chair

[Photo provided by NYSE]

Korean e-commerce giant Coupang Inc. is still at the early stage of a growth cycle and will stretch its footprint across South Korea by more than 50 percent next year, according to its chief said.

“Our annual cohorts are accelerating in size and spend each year, further evidence of the engagement and loyalty that our customer experience creates,” Kim Bom-suk, founder and chairman of Coupang, said in a conference call after its first quarter earnings announcement on Wednesday.

Coupang, trading on the New York Stock Exchange, reported record sales of $4.21 billion in the January-March period but its operating loss widened to $295 million as it increased administrative spending on expansion.

“Even our oldest cohorts are still increasing their spend indicating that we are still at the early stages of our growth cycle,” Kim added.

On the back of projected growth, the Coupang founder said that the company plans to increase its nationwide footprint by over 50 percent in the coming year, noting that it has “differentiation that will keep growing over time.”

In particular, Kim highlighted that its new Coupang Fresh service that offers dawn delivery saw sales more than double in the first quarter from a year earlier.

Its food delivery app service Coupang Eats that started small and focused on southern Seoul area until middle of last year is now offered in the southern resort island of Jeju. It was the most downloaded mobile app in Korea in the cited period, Kim said.

Despite rapid growth in the fresh food morning delivery and food delivery category last year, Kim noted that Coupang’s penetration remained low, hinting more investment in the two sectors.

Kim, meanwhile, expressed indirectly that his company for now does not have plans to expand overseas, saying that “we are so early in our journey in our existing market.”

Kim did, however, leave the room open and said it will “examine and explore opportunities in new markets as they come to us.”

[ㄏ Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]