In the “blue ocean” e-commerce market in Latin America, the strongest competitor of Amazon and Alibaba is MercadoLibre, a local e-commerce giant in the Latin American market.
In 1999, Hernan Kazah and Marcos Galperin co-founded MercadoLibre in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Currently, its services cover Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and other sites.
In the entire Latin American region, 47% of online shoppers will choose MercadoLibre, while only 17% will choose Amazon. Taking the Mexican market as an example, although the services provided by Amazon in the Mexican market are almost identical to those in the US market, only 21% of Mexican online shoppers will choose Amazon, while the proportion of consumers who choose MercadoLibre is as high as 38%.
MercadoLibre has invested in dozens of companies in Latin America and acquired 15 technology companies. Among the larger companies in Latin America, MercadoLibre is one of the few companies that can acquire top talents through mergers and acquisitions.
MercadoLibre is the first Latin American technology company to be listed on the Nasdaq, raising $289 million in its IPO in 2017.
Similar to the growth path of Brazilian mobile phone giant Movile, MercadoLibre has become the undisputed e-commerce giant in the Latin American market through a series of investments and acquisitions.
MercadoLibre is one of the biggest players in Latin America’s booming e-commerce market. As one of the earliest gold diggers in the Latin American venture capital ecosystem, MercadoLibre has been able to withstand competitive offensives launched by many global e-commerce giants in the local market through a series of strategic acquisitions and investments, including super players such as Amazon, Walmart and Alibaba. Today, the online shopping market in Latin America is becoming increasingly competitive, and MercadoLibre also needs to continue to innovate to improve service quality and increase product supply in order to maintain its position as the top player in Latin America.