Coupang’s logistics service trucks are parked in Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap
CEO highlights AI’s larger role in future
By Ko Dong-hwan
Coupang Founder and CEO Kim Bom / Courtesy of Coupang
The country’s largest online commerce platform, Coupang, saw its sales from last year surpass 40 trillion won ($27.9 billion), a record figure for the New York Stock Exchange-listed firm and a figure no company in the Korean retail industry has reached before. The company disclosed the data to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday.
The company’s founder and CEO Kim Bom said after the disclosure that robotics and automation helped the company save the most on operation costs.
He added the company still has a lot to benefit from technologies based on artificial intelligence (AI) and will rely more on innovative strategies.
Coupang said its sales from 2024 registered nearly 41.3 trillion won ($28.8 billion), up 29 percent from 31.8 trillion won in the previous year.
Its operating profit was registered at 602.3 billion won, down 2.4 percent from 617.4 billion won the previous year. The company highlighted that despite the slip it logged earnings over 600 billion won for the second consecutive year.
The company’s performance in the fourth quarter was particularly outstanding. Sales registered over 11.1 trillion won and operating profit at 435.3 billion won, up 28 percent and 154 percent from the previous year, respectively.
Most of Coupang’s sales came from its product commerce business, the company’s key growth engine. It raked in over 36.4 trillion won, up 18 percent from the previous year.
The company’s other fledgling businesses, like fast courier service Rocket Delivery in Taiwan and Farfetch, a British luxury fashion retailer it acquired in January last year, generated over 4.88 trillion won in total, contributing to the company’s overall sales.
The sales figure, from what the company called its “developing offering,” is more than four times the sector’s performance in the previous year, which was 1.03 trillion won.
The number of customers who spent money on Coupang’s online platform reached 22.8 million in 2024 at least once, up 10 percent from the previous year. Average individual spending reached 446,500 won last year, up 6 percent from the previous year.
In a conference call following Coupang’s public disclosure, Kim expressed hope for the Rocket Delivery service in Taiwan and Farfetch, which expanded its global market to 190 countries. He mentioned the potential of upgrading the global luxury commerce experience through Farfetch, saying, “I believe the playbook made in Korea can be successfully applied to other markets.”
He said the company saved 16 percent of logistics operation costs last year by improving its “fulfillment process” using robotics and automation. He added the company doubled automation throughout the entire process to improve productivity.
Kim, however, said the company still had a lot of room for improvement in its use of future technologies.
He said, “We have only begun to tap automation’s full potential. The percentage of our infrastructure that is highly automated is just in the low 10s. That is a huge runway for further improvements.”
Kim expressed a strong belief in AI, saying, “The next wave, from robotics and our networks to AI and trillions of predictions we make daily, promises to drive even higher levels of growth and margin expansion in quarters and years to come.”
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