SEOUL – Coupang Inc. (NYSE: CPNG) reported record-breaking annual revenue and its third consecutive year of operating profit for 2025. However, the e-commerce giant’s fourth-quarter performance was severely marred by a significant data privacy incident involving employee misconduct, leading to a net loss and a sharp decline in operating income.
Mixed Results: Annual Success vs. Quarterly Struggle
According to the earnings report submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on February 27, Coupang’s annual revenue reached $34.53 billion (approx. 49.12 trillion KRW), a 14% increase year-over-year. Despite this growth, the company narrowly missed the highly anticipated 50 trillion KRW milestone.
While annual operating profit grew by 8% to $473 million, the fourth quarter told a different story. Q4 operating profit plummeted by 97% to just $8 million, and the company swung to a net loss of $26 million.
The Impact of the Data Privacy Incident
The primary catalyst for the lackluster Q4 performance was a security breach involving internal staff. Coupang revealed that employees had illegally accessed over 33 million user accounts and stored data from approximately 3,000 of them.
Scope of Breach: External forensic experts from Mandiant and Palo Alto Networks confirmed that accessed data included names, addresses, and order histories.
Specific Vulnerabilities: The breach included the entry codes for the main gates of 2,609 Korean users.
Mitigation: The company emphasized that sensitive financial data, passwords, and government IDs were not compromised, and no secondary damage has been reported to date.
Coupang admitted that this incident negatively impacted revenue growth, active customer counts, and "Wow Membership" retention starting in December 2025.
Segment Performance and Future Outlook
Despite the setbacks, Coupang’s core "Product Commerce" segment grew by 8%. Meanwhile, "Developing Offerings"—including Farfetch, Taiwan operations, Coupang Eats, and Coupang Play—saw a 32% revenue jump, though adjusted EBITDA losses in this sector widened to $300 million.
The number of active customers reached 24.6 million, an 8% increase year-over-year, but notably decreased by 100,000 compared to the previous quarter, reflecting the immediate impact of the privacy scandal.
"The impact on our growth rate has recently stabilized," a Coupang Inc. representative stated. "We are seeing a recovery trend starting from the first quarter of 2026 as we reinforce our security protocols and regain customer trust."
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