Coupang posted a record 7 trillion won (about $5.7 billion) in sales last year, showing a steep growth. Although this size of sales is meaningful, the fact that the deficit has been reduced by more than 30% compared to the previous year is seen as a reversal of Coupang's performance last year and a great achievement.
Coupang, which broke the industry's expectation that the deficit will increase day by day, succeeded in reducing the deficit thanks to explosive sales growth, a strong nationwide logistics infrastructure and support by "small but strong" partner companies.
Coupang recorded 7.1 trillion won ($5.8 billion) in sales and 720.6 billion won ($590.6 million) in losses last year based on consolidation. The figure was up 64.2 percent and down 36.2 percent, respectively, from a year earlier.
It can be analyzed that Coupang was able to reduce its deficit because its sales have increased significantly based on aggressive investments.
Coupang's nationwide rocket delivery center increased six folds from 27 in 2014 to 168 last year. Consumers living in the "rocket delivery zone" that lives 10 minutes away from the rocket delivery center also increased by 13 folds from 2.59 million to 34 million during the same period.
In particular, Coupang delivered daily necessities to 1 million households nationwide in the first quarter of this year, when the spread of COVID-19 caused delays in deliveries around the world due to the establishment of logistics infrastructure over the past five years.
Mask prices, which are purchased and sold directly, were frozen at the prices before the COVID-19 outbreak and implemented the industry's first "untact delivery."
Coupang CEO Kim Bum-seok said, "The extraordinary speed of rocket delivery is due to the technology and infrastructure to predict the products customers want and prepare them in advance at the Rocket Delivery Center close to the customers."
