Coupang, Inc.

Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call

11/7/2023

spk00: Hello, my name is Krista, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the coupon. Your line is open.
spk04: Hi, thank you for the opportunity. My question is on the developing options. We've already seen a meaningful increase in revenues on a quarter-on-quarter basis. Can you maybe provide us with a little bit of a breakdown of you know, what led to that increase. And then I think, Bom, you mentioned that the unit economics for Coupang Eats is positive. In which case, if Coupang Eats did see a meaningful growth, then theoretically that should lead to, I guess, lowered losses for the developing offerings. So if you can just help us kind of reconcile that. If it is the case that Eats is actually or the losses are narrowing for each, but maybe it's in Taiwan or maybe on the play side that is led to the larger losses. If that is the case or if my logic is wrong here, if you can correct me, that'd be great. Thank you.
spk01: Thanks for the questions. As we've noted, we are seeing strong momentum in both Taiwan and East. I'll start with Taiwan. Our growth It's only been a year in Taiwan since we've launched rocket delivery. But our growth in that first year has been faster in Taiwan than it was in Korea. And as you know, we remain very confident in the overall model of rocket delivery. We've been delighted by the customer response so far. We still have a lot of work to do to not only build the kind of customer experience we want there, but also the operational experience, the excellence. that we've set our sights on. And as you continue to see us improve customer experience and improve operational excellence, you should see us able to capture growth and profits, not one at the expense of each other, as we've demonstrated in our first market career. On ETH, our ETH savings program on WOW is yielding strong results. have doubled in the majority of regions where we've launched the program. WOW members purchasing on EATS has also increased 90%. The number of regions where we're the number one food delivery service has also increased. And just 20% of all WOW members are purchasing EATS in Q3. So we have a long runway for growth ahead. And of course, the impact of EATS extends also to our broader WOW membership program and product commerce offerings Higher engagement on Eats expands our customer engagement across all services in our ecosystem, increasing acquisition retention and reducing attrition of WOW members. You know, WOW members spend significantly higher than non-WOW members. You know, we've observed WOW members who purchase Eats spend twice as much overall as WOW members who don't purchase Eats in the regions where we've launched this program. So there's a lot of you know, beneficial, accretive things to the overall ecosystem that we've seen with Eats. But even as a standalone offering, as we mentioned, Eats is unit economics positive. There are one-time set of costs like new merchant acquisition. And we've been onboarding, you know, one of the less talked about aspects of Eats is that we've onboarded a lot of new merchants and lots of new selections. and expanded the value of Eats beyond the savings program for our customers. But the unit economics trends that we continue to see give us more confidence about the potential of Eats. And the customer response, which we've been delighted by, you know, makes us even more committed and excited to make the Eats savings program a permanent benefit of WOW membership.
spk00: Your next question comes from the line of James Lee with Mizuho. Your line is open.
spk03: Great. Thanks, Molly. I'll take to my questions. I got several follow-up questions on Taiwan. And I was wondering, Bom, can you talk about some of the learnings you have had so far? And also, we can speak to some of the investments you are making, including maybe suppliers, customers. last mile delivery? And also, can you also lastly speak to some of the competitive responses you're seeing given your elevated level investment in that region? Thanks.
spk01: Hi, James. I think it's very early. We have a lot of work ahead. We've been pleased with the response that we've gotten from customers. Our service as we've started, is resonating with customers. We've always believed that there are meaningful tradeoffs we can break, and the tradeoffs we break will resonate with customers in many markets. And we've been delighted by the customer response so far, but as I mentioned, we have a lot of work ahead and are excited about the progress that we can make or we can look forward to in improving customer experience and operational excellence. We care about both of those pillars. As always, we'll continue to be disciplined and opportunistic. As we've demonstrated in the past, we'll be rigorous in our analysis and invest only in opportunities that we believe will create both a meaningful differentiation of experience for customers and a meaningful return for our shareholders. In general, you know, we do, of course, pay attention to competition, but we tend to spend our energy obsessing about the things that we control. And, you know, we continue to be obsessed about improving customer experience and improving, you know, operational excellence. Those are the two fronts that we'll spend all of our energy on. Great. Thank you.
spk00: As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, press star, then the number five on your telephone keypad. Again, that's star, and the number five on your telephone keypad. We will now take our last question from the line of Zhang Xiao with Barclays. Your line is open. Zhang Xiao with Barclays. Your line is open.
spk02: Thank you very much for taking my questions. My first question is on competition. But in Korea, as you know, some of the Chinese cross-border guys getting a bit more aggressive in Korea now. Timu entered the country a few months ago. AliExpress appears to be getting more aggressive in the country. Could you please talk about what do you see in terms of a competition from these guys, any kind of product category overlap or not overlap? Any thoughts will be appreciated. And the second question is back to Taiwan. I was wondering if there are metrics you can share with us in terms of either GMV, revenue, number of orders? anything like that, or any kind of KPI metrics, we are watching very closely for you to decide sort of the feasibility study, whether or not Taiwan is so strategic. You are here for the long term, not like you pulled out of Japan, I think, a few months back. Thank you.
spk01: Hi, John. Thanks for your questions. As you can see, in Korea, we continue to show strong growth in both revenue and active customers. That's what we see. And our growth actually has been accelerating for three consecutive quarters. It's been accelerating. Active customers, as we mentioned, is growing faster than at any point since the pandemic levels. So we continue to see at least strong indications internally with all the internal metrics that we see very strong metrics. We think it's a reflection of the unmatched investments that we've made in what we believe is the best experience at the best cost. We'll continue to make efforts and invest to expand selection. As we've mentioned, we continue to make those investments to expand selection, lower price, and raise the bar for exceptional customer service experience for customers. But it's also a reflection, we think, our strong growth or accelerating growth is a reminder of just how early we are. We're just that single-digit share of a massive retail market that's projected to exceed $550 billion in just three short years. We continue to believe that given our stage of growth, given our stage of share growth, of the overall retail spend. Our success will be determined by our execution, and we continue to be laser-focused on execution on both customer experience and operational excellence. And your second question was around Taiwan. I think generally we can say that we're drawn to opportunities where we can break trade-offs. and provide the best customer experience at the lowest cost. That's how we've been able to capture both rapid growth over the past 12 months. We've demonstrated that growth did not come at the cost of profitability or free cash flow. We've generated, as I mentioned earlier, a billion dollars in adjusted EBITDA, increasing margins by 500 BIPs. with accelerating growth. And that comes from investments we make to break trade-offs fundamentally at an operational level and to build the best customer experience at the lowest cost. That is our strategy in any initiative, any market that we enter. And of these opportunities, we invest only in those that we believe will generate significant free cash flows in the future. Efforts that demonstrate potential to achieve both a meaningful customer experience and significant free cash flow in the future earn their way to more significant investments. And as you point out, we've also unflinchingly discontinued investments that have not demonstrated the potential to achieve these objectives in the past. What we've seen so far in Taiwan strengthens our confidence and reinforces our hypothesis. We'll continue to test, iterate, and learn, but we will maintain this framework. We'll continue to operate by the tenets that we shared, you know, shortly after we went public. We publish these every quarter. The same tenets, that framework of rigor and discipline will remain unchanged as we pursue opportunities you know, in different markets and different initiative areas.
spk00: There are no further questions. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you, and you may now disconnect.
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