Mercado Libre 2019 Q4 results show it’s still growing like crazy

Mercado Libre 2019 Q4 results show it’s still growing like crazy

Mercado Libre (MELI) announced their fourth quarter earnings yesterday after market close and put up some pretty incredible growth numbers. As a reminder, Mercado Libre is an eCommerce and digital payments company based in Latin America with most of their business happening in Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina. You could think of them as a combination of Amazon (AMZN), eBay (EBAY), PayPal (PYPL), and maybe even Square (SQ) of Latin America.

Here are the highlights. Since the company does business in numerous countries with different currencies, all numbers are in local currency unless otherwise specified.

  • Net revenue grew 84% year over year
  • For digital payments: Total payment volume grew 99% year over year, which was an acceleration from the previous quarter
    • This includes a huge 176% increase in off-platform payments
  • Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) was up 40%
    • 109% growth in Argentina

Additionally, the company continues to make steady progress expanding their fulfillment network and growing their credit service, mobile point of sale (mPOS) and wallet initiatives. There are a lot of different ways for this company to grow.

The stock is currently down slightly, although it’s hard to see why. Margins dropped a bit due to the company spending a lot on growth, which is exactly what you would hope a company like this would be doing. I loved pretty much everything about this earnings report, as it shows that Mercado Libre is executing really well and has a lot of avenues for growth ahead of it. Digital Payments and eCommerce should continue to grow, as should the overall wealth of Latin America in general. Mercado Libre is already a Babylon 5 level position which is up 77% over the past year, otherwise I would consider adding to my position here. I love the potential of this company over the next 10+ years.

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