Mercado Libre Reports Strong Third Quarter 2025 Results, Driven by Expansion in E-Commerce and Fintech Across Latin America
Mercado Libre widely recognized as Latin America’s leading integrated e-commerce and fintech ecosystem, announced strong financial results for the third quarter of 2025. The company reported net revenue of US$7.4 billion, representing 39% year-over-year (YoY) growth, marking the 27th consecutive quarter in which revenue expanded by more than 30% YoY. This milestone underscores Mercado Libre’s sustained momentum and strategic execution across its regional markets, particularly in Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina.
The company attributes this continued growth to deliberate strategic investments aimed at strengthening its value proposition and reinforcing customer loyalty. These efforts include the expansion of its free shipping program in Brazil, continued enhancement of its logistics network, and an active push to grow the penetration of its Mercado Pago credit card offerings. These strategies are designed to reduce friction in the online buying experience while deepening user engagement across the Mercado Libre and Mercado Pago platforms.
Commerce Performance: Strong Growth Across Core Markets
Mercado Libre’s commerce segment delivered outstanding operational and financial performance across the region. The company’s ongoing focus on improving free shipping affordability, enhancing the user buying experience, expanding product assortment, and accelerating fulfillment capabilities resulted in notable growth in Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina.
Brazil remained the company’s largest and fastest-growing market this quarter. A key strategic shift—lowering the free shipping eligibility threshold—had an immediate positive impact. Items sold increased 42% YoY, while FX-neutral Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) grew 34% YoY. Unique buyers grew 29% YoY, marking the fastest pace of buyer acquisition since early 2021 and representing the largest quarterly increase in new buyers in company history. Conversion rates climbed to record levels, and both purchase frequency and customer retention further strengthened.
Mexico also demonstrated excellent momentum. Items sold grew 42% YoY, while FX-neutral GMV accelerated to 34% YoY. The growth was led by strong performance in cross-border trade, rising first-party (1P) sales, and record-high fulfillment penetration rates.
Meanwhile, Argentina continued to perform resiliently despite challenging macroeconomic conditions, with items sold increasing 34% YoY, fueling FX-neutral GMV growth of 44% YoY.
Advancing Logistics Leadership Across Latin America
Mercado Libre continued expanding its distribution and fulfillment infrastructure throughout the quarter. The company increased its total fulfillment center capacity by 41% YoY, reinforcing its position as the operator of the fastest end-to-end delivery network in Latin America.
These investments translated directly into improved delivery quality and cost efficiency:
- Argentina achieved record levels of same-day delivery.
- Mexico saw a rising share of same- and next-day delivery orders, alongside steady cost improvements.
- In Brazil, unit shipping costs in local currency declined 8% quarter-over-quarter, supported by greater operational scale.
Fulfillment in Mexico reached its lowest unit shipping cost on record, decreasing more than 12% YoY in local currency.
Mercado Pago: Accelerating Toward Becoming Latin America’s Leading Digital Bank
Mercado Pago, the company’s fintech arm, continued to expand the depth and breadth of its financial services offerings. The platform’s monthly active user base reached 72 million, up 29% YoY, reflecting increasing customer trust and usage frequency.
The total credit portfolio surpassed $11.0 billion, representing 83% YoY growth, driven by disciplined underwriting and improving asset quality trends. The 15-90 day non-performing loan ratio held steady at 6.8%, supported by declining first-payment default rates in Mexico and record-low default rates in Brazil.
The Mercado Pago credit card portfolio grew 104% YoY to $4.8 billion, now representing 47% of the total credit book. Notably, more than 50% of credit card Total Payment Volume (TPV) in Brazil occurred off-platform, showing the product’s growing utility in broader everyday financial life.
The company launched its credit card in Argentina in August, targeting a large underserved market where over 60% of adults lack access to a credit card, though many are already active users of Mercado Pago.
In terms of total payment volume, Mercado Pago processed $71 billion in TPV, up 41% YoY in USD, while assets under management grew 89% YoY, reaching $15.1 billion.
Mercado Ads: Strengthening Digital Advertising Leadership
Mercado Ads continued to evolve as a full-service digital advertising platform, leveraging the company’s first-party shopper data and expanding its media inventory. In Q3 2025, Mercado Libre added new premium media partnerships, including Roku and HBO, enhancing cross-channel visibility for brands.
Mercado Ads revenue grew 56% YoY in USD and 63% YoY in FX-neutral terms. Search advertising continued to perform strongly, while Display and Video advertising revenue nearly doubled YoY.
Profitability and Earnings
Income from operations reached $724 million, representing 30% YoY growth, with a 9.8% operating margin. Higher investments in free shipping, social platforms, first-party initiatives, and the credit card program were largely offset by greater operating leverage in product development and administrative functions.
Net income for the quarter totaled $421 million, representing a 5.7% net margin.
Management Commentary
“We are very pleased with our Q3 results, particularly the strong performance in Brazil,” said Martin de los Santos, Chief Financial Officer of Mercado Libre. “The results demonstrate the effectiveness of our strategic investments in enhancing the user experience and expanding our free shipping offering. We achieved record levels of buyer growth, market share gains, and Net Promoter Score improvements. Meanwhile, Mercado Pago continues to gain momentum as more users choose us as their primary financial partner. With our ecosystem advantage, we remain confident in our ability to drive e-commerce adoption and advance financial inclusion throughout the region.”
Supporting Economic Growth and Entrepreneurship in Latin America
Mercado Libre’s latest Impact Reports highlight the company’s role in supporting entrepreneurship and small-to-medium enterprise (SME) growth:
- The platform supports more than 9.5 million SMEs and entrepreneurs across its top three markets.
- The ecosystem contributes 0.81% of GDP in Mexico, 3.2% in Brazil, and 9.8% in Argentina.
- For over 60% of participating businesses, Mercado Pago served as their first and primary source of credit.
These findings highlight the company’s broader purpose: enabling economic opportunity and financial access at scale.
Source Link:https://www.businesswire.com/
