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Coupang (CPNG) reported higher annual third-quarter results late Tuesday, with revenue topping market expectations as the e-commerce firm's operating segments saw growth.
The company, which is based in the US and sells products mainly in South Korea, posted adjusted earnings of $0.06 per share for the September quarter, up from $0.05 the year before. Four analysts polled by Capital IQ expected normalized EPS of $0.01. Overall revenue climbed 27% to $7.87 billion, beating the Street's view for $7.73 billion.
Net income ticked down to $0.04 a share from $0.05 in the 2023 quarter, mainly due to the operating losses incurred by Farfetch, the online luxury company that Coupang acquired in January. Coupang's shares dropped 6.1% in Wednesday's premarket activity.
"With Farfetch, our team is making significant progress in driving operational efficiency through disciplined execution," Chief Executive Bom Kim said on an earnings call, according to a Capital IQ transcript. The company achieved "near breakeven profitability" at Farfetch in the third quarter, earlier than its year-end target, according to Kim.
Product commerce sales advanced 16% to $6.89 billion as active customers increased 11% to 22.5 million. "As we continue to be a very small portion of the total commerce spend in Korea, we see a massive runway for growth ahead of us," Chief Financial Officer Gaurav Anand said on the call, referring to the segment.
Revenue in the developing offerings division, which includes Farfetch, soared to $975 million from $218 million in the prior-year period. The segment recorded negative adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of $127 million, compared with a $161 million loss a year ago.
"While we expect to continue to see some unevenness in the level of losses from quarter-to-quarter, the improvements we saw this quarter are most notably driven from improvements in both (Coupang) Eats and Farfetch," Anand told analysts.
Gross profit margin improved by 350 basis points to 28.8% in the quarter. Total operating costs and expenses widened to $7.76 billion from nearly $6.1 billion year-on-year, the company said.