Damien Kantor
01/25/2021 11:43 AM
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 01/25/2021 12:11 PM
At 11:35 a.m. on Monday, January 25, Mercado Libre's share exceeded $ 2,000.
At that price, the market value of the company created by Marco Galperín reached a market value of $ 100 billion.
Something never seen in Argentina.
That value is equivalent to 20 times all the banks that operate in Argentina.
And in these hours it contrasts with the reality of YPF, which today is worth less than 1,500 million dollars.
YPF is still the largest company in Argentina.
Mercado Libre plays in the big leagues, and its main income is generated in Brazil and Mexico.
The Mercado Libre record
In a climate of stock market euphoria and
in parallel to the coronavirus crisis
, the titles in the New York Stock Exchange of Mercado Libre began to rise from March 23 and the creature created by Marcos Galperín exceeded the stock market valuation of US $ 100,000 million ,
tripling its floor from last year
.
All for
the rise of its two main businesses
, e-commerce and digital finance, which it leads with its
flagship
brand, Mercado Pago.
The accounting numbers of the technology company have a full impact on the pocket of Galperin, one of its main shareholders.
According to the Billionaires Ranking produced by Forbes in real time, the businessman
accumulated a fortune of US $ 8.1 billion
and ranks 289th among the richest men on the planet, a ranking led by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos (US $ 189 billion) and Tesla and Space X creator Elon Musk ($ 183.6 billion).
The balance sheets
of the most famous Argentine unicorn have
improved significantly since the start of the pandemic.
For the phenomenal momentum of
online sales and also for the takeoff of electronic payments
.
Last year, the
company
billed more than US $ 20,000 million
for online sales in the region, which represents a 46% increase, 5 compared to 2019. Much of the volume
comes from 3 of the 18 countries where it operates
: Brazil ( US $ 10,970 million), Argentina (US $ 4,410 million) and Mexico (4,060 million), indicates a report by the US portal eMarketer, specialized in retail trade.
The data is reflected in the market value of companies in the sector, including Amazon.
With regard to the stock markets, the financial analyst Mariano Lebedinsky interprets that it is something "
never seen in history
" and adds that Wall Street is going through a moment of euphoria "dissociated from reality".
However, the expert maintains that companies such as Mercado Libre, Amazon and China's Alibaba "have real justifications, because they expand in markets that predominate and are businesses based on tangible facts," he said.
Mercado Libre reached the Nasdaq in 2007
, the stock exchange where the world's leading technology companies are listed.
And it becomes the first technology company in Latin America to make its public offering of shares (IPO).
The
New York Stock Exchange
listed it under the name "MELI."
A decade later,
in 2017, the company entered the Nasdaq100 index for the first time
, which groups together the 100 technology companies with the highest market value.
Replaces Yahoo!
Already 46 years old, Galperin also enters the ranking of the richest in the world with a fortune of more than US $ 1 billion.
Mercado Libre's titles
began to rise on March 23
and achieved an undeniable achievement: the Argentine company is the most valuable in the region.
"In March, at the beginning of the quarantine, we registered a very strong fall and in the first week sales fell 70%, but
since April they rebounded very quickly.
The crisis accelerated the changes for which we had been preparing" was one of the balance sheets that the president of Mercado Libre, Juan Martín de la Serna, did months ago.
With the aim of speeding up order deliveries, a key aspect for eCommerce, Mercado Libre implemented
its first two aircraft fleets
, first in Brazil and later in Mexico.
In both cases, there
are 4 planes
contracted to private airlines, which operate exclusively for your company.
They carry the color yellow, the distinctive logo of the brand (a handshake) and the name of the company.
All under the premise of cutting shipping times in half (24 hours maximum) in large countries.
As it is,
the star of Mercado Libre on Wall Street shines stronger and stronger
.
On May 19, it surpassed a price of $ 800 per share and was already valued at $ 40 billion.
On July 6, the stock crossed $ 1,000 and a valuation of $ 50 billion.
But the escalation did not stop and continues to climb in the consideration of global investors.
Mercado Libre
is by far the most valuable Argentine company in history
.
The one that had gone the furthest was YPF (Repsol): the oil company reached its maximum of US $ 27,307 million, in September 2005.
The smartphone definitively displaced PCs as a hub for entertainment and as a center for business transactions.
According to eMarketer, almost two thirds (65.1%) of Mercado Libre's business in Argentina comes from mobile devices.
This year, total sales through telephones will grow 80%, representing a turnover of US $ 2.87 billion.
For Mercado Libre, however, Argentina has been losing relevance with respect to Mexico in terms of volume of transactions and billing.
Merit aside if one takes into account that in that country competes - and surpasses - Amazon.
In its last quarterly balance sheet, Mercado Libre obtained a gross profit of US $ 480 million.
On the other hand, in that period it billed US $ 5.902 million.
"70% of that value comes from transactions made from mobile devices," the company said.
In terms of quantities, 205.7 million items were sold in the quarter, which implies a year-on-year growth of 109.9%.
All data that confirm the good moment that electronic commerce is going through in the country and also in the region.