Mercado Libre Sacrifices Short-Term Profits to Fuel Growth

Mercado Libre’s investments in free shipping, a Mercado Pago credit card, first-party selection and cross-border trade drove a 49% year-over-year increase in net revenue and financial income in the first quarter, the company said in a Thursday (May 7) earnings release.

That increase brought the Latin American eCommerce and FinTech’s net revenue and financial income for the quarter to $8.8 billion.

Mercado Libre said in the release that its lower free shipping threshold in Brazil, which it introduced last year, continued to deliver results beyond its expectations. The company said that move was “one of our most important strategic decisions of 2025.”

However, the company’s net income declined 16% year over year in the first quarter, slipping to $417 million, according to a letter to shareholders released Thursday.

“Income from operations decreased by 20% YoY [year over year] as we chose to prioritize long-term growth investments over short-term profitability,” Mercado Libre said in the letter.

The company said that the investments’ results show it is taking the right steps, that it is growing at startup rates even though the company is 26 years old, and that its growth is even accelerating in its largest and most established market, Brazil.

“When your business is behaving like this, we believe the right response is not to harvest — it is to invest,” Mercado Libre said.

Outlining the results of its investments, the company said the lower free shipping threshold in Brazil drove conversion, frequency, retention and NPS to record highs; the Mercado Pago credit card has turned millions of the company’s marketplace-only users into FinTech users too; its first-party business enabled it to offer a broader assortment and more competitive prices than its third-party marketplace alone; and its cross-border trade complements its core local marketplace and is expected to see growing demand.

It was reported in November that Mercado Libre was investing more than ever before in coupons ahead of Black Friday due to heightened competition in Latin America from Amazon, Shein, Shopee, Temu and other online retailers.

Martin de los Santos, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Mercado Libre, said during a Thursday earnings call: “As we have always said, we’re not trying to optimize short-term margins. What we’re doing is we’re investing for the long term. We will continue to invest boldly in those initiatives.”