South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang swung to a fourth-quarter loss and missed revenue estimates, as fallout from a major data breach weighed on growth and customer activity.
Revenue for the October–December period totaled $8.8 billion, below the $8.9 billion forecast by LSEG SmartEstimate. The company reported a net loss of $26 million, compared with a profit in the same period a year earlier. Shares of the New York-listed company closed up 1.9% on Thursday.
Coupang Korea, which accounts for more than 90% of group revenue, has faced public backlash since disclosing in November that a data breach affected about 34 million customers.
Chief Financial Officer Gaurav Anand said active customers in the company’s core product commerce segment rose 8% year-on-year to 24.6 million in the fourth quarter. However, that figure slipped slightly from 24.7 million in the previous quarter, a decline he linked to the breach.
“We are seeing stabilization since the end of the fourth quarter, with a large number of customers reactivating their accounts and improving trends in customer growth,” Anand said during an earnings call.
He added that constant-currency growth in the product commerce segment likely bottomed out in January at around 4%, before improving in February. For the first quarter, Coupang expects consolidated constant-currency revenue growth of 5% to 10%.
Anand cautioned that growth and profitability would remain subdued in the coming months as the company continues to deal with the lingering impact of the breach, though he expects the effects to ease gradually over the year.
Coupang said the breach exposed customers’ names, phone numbers and shipping addresses, but did not compromise payment information or login credentials. The company pledged to strengthen safeguards and prevent a recurrence.
Harold Rogers, interim head of Coupang’s South Korean business, said no misuse of customer data attributable to the incident has been detected and there is no evidence so far of secondary harm.
According to Rogers, an internal investigation found the breach resulted from a targeted attack by a former employee who exploited knowledge of the company’s systems. However, South Korea’s Science Ministry said earlier this month that the incident stemmed from management failures rather than a sophisticated cyberattack.
Since the breach, competitors have sought to attract customers away from the platform. Coupang also faces potential regulatory changes that could intensify competition in ultra-fast overnight delivery — a key pillar of its market dominance.
Separately, South Korea’s antitrust regulator fined the company 2.2 billion won ($1.53 million) for pressuring suppliers to cut prices and absorb additional costs, as well as for delaying payments to vendors. The penalty is unrelated to the data breach.
Bd-pratidin English/ Jisan
