MercadoLibre, Inc.

Hello everyone and welcome to the MercadoLibre earnings conference call for the quarter ended June 30th, 2025. Thank you for joining us. I am Richard Cathcart, MercadoLibre's Investor Relations Officer. Today we will share our quarterly highlights on video, after which we will begin our live Q&A session with our management team. Before we go on to discuss our results of the second quarter of 2025, I remind you that management may make or refer to and this presentation may contain forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measures. So please refer to the disclaimer on screen, which will also be available in our earnings materials on our investor relations website. Please note that this call is being recorded and a replay will be made available on our investor relations website as well. As we continue to evolve our communications with investors, we have decided to launch our quarterly product updates video after earnings, rather than together with our results call. So watch out for this coming to your inboxes in the weeks after our results disclosure. With that, let's begin with a short message from our CFO.

Hello, everyone. In Q2, MercadoLibre delivered another quarter of strong financial performance, with revenues growing over 30% year-on-year and record income from operations of $825 million. These results reflect the strength and consistency of our execution as we continue to invest with discipline to advance our long-term ambitions in commerce, fintech, and advertising. In Brazil, we lowered our free shipping threshold for the third time in five years as part of our objective of bringing offline retail online by removing frictions. This strategic initiative is attracting new users to our e-commerce platform, increasing engagement among existing buyers, and expanding our assortment. The enhanced value proposition resulted in accelerated GMB growth in June following the implementation of the new pricing. Mexico was another standout in Q2. GMB growth accelerated sharply and the number of items sold in the platform increased at the fastest pace in almost two years, driven by strong performance across both our 1P and cross-border businesses. advertising revenue grew 38% year-on-year. In Q2, we launched our integration with Google Manager, an important milestone in positioning Mercado Ads as a key strategic partner for brand-focused advertisers. ThinTech services continue to gain strong traction in Q2. Monthly active users of Mercado Pago reached 68 million, reflecting rapid user growth and increasing engagement across our ecosystem. Asset under management more than doubled year on year once again. Our credit portfolio surpassed $9.3 billion, growing by 91% year on year. We're also encouraged by the quality of our credit business, with NIMAL remaining broadly stable quarter over quarter and 50 to 98 MPLs falling below 7% for the first time since we began reporting the metric. Our credit card business continues to perform well in both Brazil and Mexico. Strong asset quality and ongoing enhancements to our credit models enabled us to issue 1.5 million new cards in Q2, We're also seeing consistent improvements in cohort profitability, with more than half of our portfolio in Brazil already being nine-mile positive. We are pleased with our performance in Q2, as the benefits of years of disciplined investments continue to compound. Engagement is rising across all areas of our ecosystem, reinforcing the strength of our platform and the long-term potential ahead. Thank you for your continued support.

in the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. Please limit yourselves to one question. If you have additional questions, you may rejoin the queue. Our first question today is from Andrew Rubin with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks very much for the question, and congratulations as well on the CEO transition announcement. I'm curious around the shipping changes. I see you mentioned the lower free shipping minimum, but also the cut in seller fees between $79 and about $200. I'm curious on the seller side, what kind of return you see when you reduce the fees for sellers, if it gets reinvested into price, and how to understand the dynamic between that part of the shipping investment. Thank you.

Hey, Andrew. How are you?

Ariel here. So, before the change in pricing, you could see that there was a kind of a cliff edge in the take rate from below 79 reais to above 79 reais which basically led to steep increase in fees both in in absolute terms but more importantly as a percentage of gmb so basically with with this adjustment we are lowering that cliff smoothening the curve uh from 79 reais upward and and we think this is the right thing to do as Let me step back for a second. We tested and learned from executing this last year in a few categories, and our experience actually shows that this initiative has a positive impact, and it comes from A, merchants lowering prices, and B, bringing more selection to our platform. And more importantly, those impacts are not necessarily perceived at the moment in which we execute the changes, but they get strengthened strengthening over time. So overall, I would say this was a positive change for us. We are happy with the early results we've seen, and we are encouraged by the fact that from our experience, we are expecting even more of a positive impact in the near future.

The next question is from Irma Cigars with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi, thank you for the opportunity. I just wanted to go a little bit through the highest sales in marketing spend this quarter, excluding the provisions. The spend was almost up 50% in US dollar terms. Now, we know that you had two very specific high-profile campaigns in Brazil this quarter, and I think in the latter you also called out the campaigns in Argentina and in Mexico. So, should we think about the spend of this quarter as a little bit of a I don't want to call it one-off, but as maybe perhaps a slight outlier, or do you see further opportunities to continue to lean into the back half of the year? And in this context, if I may, do you see scope for AI to impact both the efficacy and efficiency of your own ad spend, but also in terms of the ad inventory of a non-platform that you're showing to your ad clients, or is that too early in the lifecycle? Thank you.

Hi, your Mike Martin here.

Thank you for your question. It's correct what you see and we've shown on the graph on the investor presentation. We compressed margin by one percentage point this quarter compared to last year in sales and marketing. And this is mostly because of several things. Mercado Pago, we launched several campaigns. different countries with celebrities to promote our platform. And the results have been very, very positive in terms of user growth, asset management doubling in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. Downloads also improving very drastically from previous quarters. So very successful campaign, but obviously that puts a little pressure, shortened pressure on margins. On the commerce side, we also invested, we run a campaign similar size to a Black Friday to promote our free shipping that, as you know, we launched in June. So that's also some investment that we did behind the lowering of free shipping in Brazil, putting some pressure on commercial. And then on top of that, we also increased a little bit of POM, paid advertising, to acquire more users. always with positive returns. So that's also an increase relative to last year. And finally, we invested a little bit more on our social strategy by investing in affiliates and content creators program that, again, those will bring results throughout the quarters, but in the short term, they put some margin pressure. So I would think it's a combination of both ongoing investments in acquiring users and downloads, but also a couple of one-off campaigns in particular in Mercado Pago and the lower free shipping threshold that we did in Brazil this quarter.

Hey, Irma. Ariel here. To the second part of your question, we definitely think that there is huge room for AI to help us improve both our marketing execution and security. our ad spend as well. So on the marketing side, I think there are many, many dimensions in which we are testing and learning about AI. Just to bring one example out there, for instance, when we think about branding and creativities, AI brings us the opportunity to produce multiple creativities for any given campaign and start testing and learning those creativities across the board. And with that, deciding who we want to show what. in the online world, and that's something we are already proving, producing, you know, content online instead of in the physical world is another thing that we're working on. So many, many dimensions in which we think AI will add value. And the same is happening with advertising. We are using AI today in order to help our sellers better understand our ad stack to get onboarded into our ad technology to optimize their bidding and so on. So yes, we are bullish with the impact that AI will bring into this environment.

The next question is from Robert Ford with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Good evening, everybody, and thanks for taking my question. Yeah, I was curious, where are you in terms of your low ASP selection versus your longer-term plan in the Shopee assortment? You know, how long is it going to take you to get to where you want to be? And how is your low ASP strategy different from that of Shopee in Brazil?

Hey, Bob.

So let me answer this differently. We are convinced that we have, in general terms, the widest selection available out there in Brazil. I think there is opportunity for us to continue increasing the number of live listings in OESPs, and part of what we are doing today in Brazil is related to that. We are already seeing good traction on new sellers and new live listings on low-ticket items coming into our platform. Bear in mind that in this quarter, you only see four weeks of the new free shipping policy in place in our results. So overall, we are positive with everything we've seen. So far, we are encouraged with the seller reaction to the program and with the number of listings that we see every day coming into our platform.

The next question is from Marcelo Santos with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask a bit about the change in shipping strategy. Would it make sense to apply this to other countries like Argentina and Mexico? I mean, I think you also have the same problem in terms of the steep change in take rate after the free shipping threshold. I mean, could you discuss the elements that would be important to consider in these other countries? Thank you.

Hey, Marcelo. Ariel here. So let me break this down in different things. So in Brazil, we implemented two different things. On the one hand, the lowering of the shipping fees for merchants, which is the one I was referring to about the cliff and the take rates. Then we lowered the free shipping policy for Brazil in particular from 39 to 19 reais. To your point on bringing those policies into Mexico or Argentina, I would say that every market is different, right? And we don't have the exact same policy and the exact same value proposition in each one of our operations. For instance, we don't have the same level of cashbacks in our Melimize program in Brazil and in Mexico. We don't have the same level of fulfillment penetration in the different countries, Mexico being... the highest, Brazil probably in the middle, and Argentina the lowest, and so on, right? So while we don't give guidance on our policies looking forward, what I can say is that as we always do, we will learn, we will evaluate, and we will decide eventually which policies we want to bring where, but there's no hard commitment on executing one thing in the other place.

The next question is from Rodrigo Gastim with Itao BBA. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good evening, everyone. Just on Brazil, GMV, you mentioned in the letter items acceleration in Brazil after the pre-shipping campaign. And you say that you saw GMV following a similar pattern. So just to make it clear here, guys, Can we understand that GMB in Brazil also accelerated after the pre-shipping campaign? So far, this is very important for us to understand, given, you know, all the investments that you have done. So, ending here would be very appreciated.

Thank you. Let me try to answer that one so we are very happy with the results that we are seeing in Brazil particularly items sold In Brazil accelerated to 34 percent growth year-over-year in June So that's a major Acceleration, of course given the fact that we are accelerating in the segment where the ASP is the lowest the impact in overall GMB growth is is smaller but both accelerated. And you should bear in mind that Q2 is actually comparing to a Q2 last year in which we have a very, very strong performance. On top of that, we see that the program we've put in place also has generated impact in traffic, in buyer acquisition, new buyers, engagement, and so on. But more importantly, I think it deserves kind of a step back, right? We are doing this because we think and we are committed to bringing offline retail to the online world. We have proven over and over since 2017 that offering more free shipping to our buyers has a direct impact in customer satisfaction, in customer retention, in frequency And that creates long-term value for us, right? We've done the lowering of the free shipping three times already. We moved from 120 reais to 99, then from 99 to 79, and this time from 79 to 19. And we're excited because we see all the key KPIs trending in the right direction. It's too early to give you details on the numbers beyond what I've just said, but everything is pointing in the direction in which we want it.

The next question is from Neha Agarwala with HSBC. Please go ahead.

Hi. On the commerce side, how much of the lower pricing that you have for the sellers is being passed on to the consumers eventually in your view? And on the syntax side, the oil delinquencies have been coming down quite swiftly. but the NPL ratio remains elevated and picked up sequentially. If you can give us some color on that, when can we see NPLs actually stabilize and how has the asset quality evolved in the three GOs? Thank you so much.

Hey, Neha.

So on the first part of your question, I would say that given the mechanics with which we implemented the reduction in fees and the way sellers operate in MercadoLibre, most of the lowering in take rates were passed into pricing. So we saw a clear reduction of prices in MercadoLibre after the implementation of the changes in intake rate. I will let Osvaldo and Martin answer the second part of your question.

So, Niha, in regards to MPLs, what we're seeing is that a reduction in, a sequential reduction in MPLs between 15 and 90 days, and there was a slight increase in over 90 days, but it's roughly in line with what it was before. It was 18.5% a year ago, and it's 18.5% now. Sequentially up half a percent to a point from 18.5%, but we don't have a concern with regards to NPRs. Actually, we are very happy with how they are evolving, and we have been able to reaccelerate issuance of cards, given that the models are performing very well.

And just to complement, Nihab, if you look at the other side of the business, which is the revenues that we generate through our portfolio, our actual profitability of most of our portfolios have improved sequentially and year over year. So we are very satisfied, and this is the reason why you see an increase in acceleration in the growth rate of our portfolios. The overall credit portfolio grew at 91% year-on-year, and the credit card specifically grew 118% year-on-year. As we mentioned earlier, because it's becoming a lot more profitable, we are very satisfied with the results of our credit cards. So I think you should look not only at MPLs, which short-term MPLs are coming down, but it's true that the longer MPLs are slightly up, but the profitability is in pretty good shape and all metrics are pointing in the right direction.

The next question is from Deepak Mathavanan with Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead.

Hey, this is Jack on for Deepak. So you saw nice growth in advertising this quarter. Can you share a bit more color on how off-platform ads are trending in the early days? And then related, you mentioned Argentina is narrowing the ad revenue gap with Brazil and Mexico. What specific levers are driving this catch-up? Thanks.

Hey, Jack. Ariel here. So, yes, we had a great quarter. In ads, revenues grew by 38% year-over-year in dollars and 59% year-over-year on FX neutral. Argentina is growing particularly well, I would say, as a result of both macro conditions and team execution. So lower inflation, more stocks on the hands of sellers and so on is kind of giving them the space and the oxygen to be able to invest as to promote sales. But also on top of that, I think our team has done a tremendous job in explaining the value proposition and helping sellers understand the value that our tech stack can bring to them. On top of that, going back to ads performance in general, display and video has almost doubled year over year. I know we are starting from a low base, but still triple digits growth. It's nice to see product ads is performing well across countries and sites, and not only in Argentina. And this is on the back of improved UX and tools for sellers, such as a new question flow focused on benefits of advertising, smarter item selection, improved budget recommendation using AI, and some of the things that I was that I was mentioning before. So yes, overall, very positive on everything we're doing on ads. We see ads as a percentage of GMB accelerating this quarter. So good news. But still, the opportunity is huge ahead of us. So excited, but cautious. We need to continue executing.

The next question is from Jamie Friedman with Susquehanna. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking the question. My questions are about slide 13 and 14. Is there any way to help unpack the mixed shift to credit cards impacting the 9-mile? It was still good at 23%, but I'm just curious as to how you think about that. And then the top of the funnel looks really good, right? 6.7% down from 8.2% in terms of NPLs. What is your overall message on credit and credit quality? Thank you.

With regards to NEMA, I think there are several effects working on at the same time. On the one hand, the most obvious ones with regards to credit card is that NEMA for credit card is lower than for the other products, and credit card is growing significantly faster than the credit book. So, as Martin was saying, it's growing at over 100% year over year. And that's why, even though the NEMA for the credit card remains rather flat for new segments and has been improving for older segments, As the portfolio grows, that has an impact on the overall email. And then the other factor I will mention is that is relevant is Argentina with inflation coming down so fast in Argentina. So how Nemo last year was ridiculously high, I would say. But still, it's super profitable, and to counterbalance that to some degree, the other thing that is happening with Argentina is that the size of Argentina within all of the loan portfolio has increased. So, even though the NEMA has come down a little bit, overall, the impact continues to be relevant because of this increase in weight in the portfolio. Then, regarding the overall credit quality, I'll say that I think we are very bullish, I would say, on how we are issuing credit. If you recall, a couple of quarters ago, at the end of the fourth quarter, early first quarter, we were a little bit more cautious, particularly in Brazil, because we saw a There were concerns about interest rates increasing and, in general, in the market, NPLs increasing. And to some degree, we have seen something similar in the overall market in Argentina more recently. Nonetheless, we have continued to improve our models, and we felt comfortable increasing the speed of issuing cards in Brazil and in Mexico, in both countries, but mostly in Brazil. We continue to see that cohorts that are two years or older, all of them have NEMA positive. For example, pretty much all of the 2020 cohorts are already NEMA positive, and some of the early 2024 cohorts also.

So, we will continue to be bullish when we are issuing credits.

The next question is from Trevor Young with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you. Just sticking with credit card for a second and the comment in the letter around NIMAL, just to be clear, the entire credit card business is now NIMAL breakeven, or was that a comment around some subset of the business? And then relatedly, should we assume that the credit card NIMAL will now remain breakeven or even positive from here over the medium term, particularly as you look to launch credit cards in Argentina before too long?

yeah so nimel is break even in brazil which is the country where we have been issuing cards for for the longer and it's the largest market for us it's not yet the case in mexico and whenever we start in argentina initially it will be negative but we expect that within a few years it should achieve break even so what we should focus moving forward i would say Some of the large cohorts were issued in 2023 and 2024. So assuming there is a decrease in the speed at which we issued, those will have an impact in the next coming years.

But Brazil is already positive.

The next question is from Jeffrey Elliott with Autonomous. Please go ahead.

Hello. Thanks very much for taking the question. The credit portfolio is growing quickly. As it grows, how do you expect the funding mix behind that to evolve? And what are the implications on NEMA? Specifically, will you shift away from using your own funds to more external funding? And will that weigh on the NEMA?

Thank you. Hi, it's Martin here.

I think if you look at the different credit portfolios that we have, you know, the more mature portfolios, consumer credits and merchant credits, we have been funding it through third parties. So the majority of the funding comes through third parties, and you see that as part of the cost in NIMAL, correct? The credit card has been funded by us so far. We're starting to fund it with third parties, so you do not see the funding cost in Nemo. As we extend more funding to the credit card via third parties, that will have an effect on Nemo in the way we account for that cost within Nemo. But that's something that will come in the future.

The next question is from Joao Soros with Citigroup.

Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you for taking my question. You mentioned in the release how you're scaling faster infrastructure and adapting to the expected increase mix of lower ASPs, right? I wanted to hear more about this adaptation. Imagine expanding this low shipping is one component, but also expanding probably higher transit points. So I just wanted to understand how you're adapting the infrastructure and how should we think about the profitability of these lower ASP products and the free shipping, right? How should we think about when or if it can match, right, the margin of your higher ticket items, right?

Thank you.

Ariel Ramirez- Hey, Joao. This is Ariel here. So when thinking about unit economics and profitability of the lower ticket items in which we are now offering for shipping, the mindset with which we approach this problem is kind of broad, right? So we think about relationships with our users and not transactions, meaning that when evaluating the profitability of the initiative, you also need to consider a downstream impact that the higher engagement and frequency can generate In the context of this big opportunity we have ahead of us of bringing retail offline to online in a country in which we only have 15% of e-commerce penetration. Also, in our slow delivery with wider delivery promises has just started. We have not done that before. So, we have ample room to continue improving economics there. In the long run, we do expect that the additional scale will help us reduce unit shipping economics plus Capturing the productivity opportunities that the slow methods also bring to the table. In summary, if you look at purchases between 19 and 79 reais on a standalone basis, there will be a range of margins. Not all of them will be positive. Not all of them will be negative. But even so, we expect this to be net positive for the P&L in the longer term. And we are more importantly convinced that this is the right investment to make. to extend our position as the destination of choice for e-commerce in Latin America.

The next question is from Carlo Prado with UBS. Please go ahead.

Hello, everyone. Good evening. I would like to explore a little bit more the credit operations in Argentina, if I may, please. Last quarter, you mentioned that we were four times the portfolio in dollars. So just wondering if you can share more details about the growth pace this quarter as well. And we have been seeing a sharp increase in NPLs for the traditional banks in Argentina, especially in the consumer portfolio. Just would like to understand what can you say about the asset quality for your operations, if there is any concern and the strategy going forward. And finally, we saw some change regarding the reserve requirements on money market funds in Argentina. And your remunerated accounts are in money market funds, if I'm not wrong. Just wondering if that could impact your fintech operations there at some point as well.

Thank you.

So, yes, we have increased significantly the portfolio in Argentina. Basically, we were coming from a very, very small basis, if you will. there was basically no credit in Argentina. If you were to look at credit to the private sector in Argentina, it was single digits as percentage of GDP. It's very, very small, so there was plenty of room to grow. We grew a lot. We have seen worsening conditions in the market. It has not been our case. We believe that part of that is that we have very strong principalities in Argentina. People use MercadoPago daily, and therefore that could help us in people paying us back first rather than other debts they might have. So, we are not seeing significant impacts in terms of NPLs. And then, I think the second part of the question was regarding the change in reserve requirements for money market funds. That happened last week. Actually, there was a change in reserves for pretty much all of the banks and also money market funds. Quick and dirty, we expect the impact in what we pay to users to be in the order of 2%, meaning we were paying close to 30% to the 27% roughly to customers before. And with this change, the impact will be roughly 2% on points and will be around 25%.

The next question is from Marvin Fong with BTIG. Please go ahead.

Good evening. Thanks for taking my questions. Um, just, uh, on the, I know it's only been a few months now, but with the lower free shipping threshold, you know, those purchases that are happening under 79 REI, uh, just curious, you know, how is the behavior there? Are you seeing a lot of the purchases near the low end of the, of the free shipping threshold? And, um, Do you expect that to change over time? Would you expect the average order size to increase for those people that are starting to purchase from MercadoLibre, but perhaps will start becoming more comfortable purchasing more items on the marketplace? And then second question, just would love some insight on just your comfort with continuing this pace of credit card issuance in Brazil. given some of the tightening that's going on. It looks like there's been some slowdown in consumer spending, but just any color there would be much appreciated. Thank you very much.

Hey, Marvin.

So let me answer your question in a slightly different way. We would not be a $50-plus billion GMB company today if it were not because of building our logistics infrastructure and launching our free shipping program back in 2017. And we think this is the same case now. We are convinced that the best way to serve our customers in Brazil is by offering more free shipping, and that's basically what we are doing. So within that range, there are many, many things happening simultaneously. We just launched this program. A few weeks back, so it's a bit early, but we definitely expect the trend that we see in traffic increases, conversion rate increasing, more engagement, more frequency to continue in the future. And with that, we expect to see, you know, orders going up. Order size is going up and so on, right? So this is not a marketing investment that we are doing in order to generate transaction from one day to the other. This is a long-term play in which we think this is the best way to serve our customers.

And Marvin, when it comes to credit cards, I would say that what we have been doing consistently is improve our models and issue cards at a pace that allows us to have payback periods of roughly between two and three years. And we will continue to do that. We cannot be sure about what that pace will be in the future. But we do know that if you look at our market share today in credit cards in Brazil, it's roughly 2%. So there is plenty of opportunity to continue growing.

Just to complement, as we have done in the past, if we see something that we do not like in the market or in our models, we will be willing to slow down, just like we did in the past. So far, we're very comfortable with the models, the collections, NPLs, and the performance of the credit card. So we'll continue to grow so long as we can guarantee that we have a healthy book and a profitable book in the medium to long term.

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Martin de los Santos for any closing remarks.

Thank you all for joining today to the call, and thank you for your questions. We're very pleased with our results in Q2, where once again we saw our businesses accelerating growth both in commerce and fintech, and we look forward to engaging again in October with you when we present our Q3 results. In the meantime, the investor relations team will be available for any further questions. Thank you again and good night.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.