A Record Quarter on Top, a Mixed Credit Book Underneath
Over these 12 quarters: share price $1,572 to $1,729 (+10%); operating income 240 to 676 US$ million; operating income margin 5.6% to 6.3%. One graph in actual numbers: bars are the quarter's operating income, over them the share price at quarter-end (left axis) and the operating income margin (right axis); each line is fitted to its own range, so read the timing, not the heights. Prices are adjusted for splits.
MercadoLibre's loan book deteriorated on more than one measure this quarter - and it's Consumer loans, not the much-faster-growing credit-card book, doing almost all of the damage. Net revenue and financial income crossed $10.75 billion, up 45.1% reported, with unique active buyers and Mercado Pago's own monthly active users both reaching new highs. But operating margin kept falling, continuing a decline that set in several quarters ago, and two loan-book quality ratios the Company's own FY2025 numbers held "essentially flat" have both moved for two quarters running. Pulled apart by loan type, the move isn't coming from where the headline credit-growth number points.
Margin Has Now Fallen for Three Straight Quarters, Not a One-Off
Operating income margin fell to 6.3% of revenue, continuing a decline that started at Q4 2025's 10.1% peak and hasn't reversed since. The Company's own stated figures show the quarterly sequence plainly: 10.1% (Q4 2025) → 6.9% (Q1 2026) → 6.7% (Q2 2026) → 6.3% (Q3 2026). Gross profit margin tells the same story at an earlier line: 43.3% a year ago to 40.8% this quarter, which the Company attributes to higher shipping operating costs, a higher cost of goods sold as first-party sales keep growing, and the lower free-shipping threshold in Brazil introduced earlier this year. None of that reversed this quarter - shipping and carrier costs alone grew $1,057 million year-over-year, outpacing even this quarter's fast revenue growth.
It's Not the Credit Cards. It's the Consumer Loans.
The loan book's allowance-to-gross ratio climbed from 25.7% a year ago to 27.1% this quarter, but almost the entire move is concentrated in Consumer loans, not the fast-growing credit-card book that usually draws the attention. Broken out by the four products the Company itself discloses: Consumer loans' own allowance ratio jumped from 27.3% (September 30, 2025) to 34.8% (September 30, 2026), a 7.6-percentage-point increase - meaning more than a third of every dollar in that category is now provisioned against loss. Credit cards, the product that actually grew the fastest (gross loans receivable up 76.3% year-over-year, to $8,467 million from $4,803 million), moved the other way: its allowance ratio fell from 21.5% to 18.8% over the same year. Merchant loans also worsened, though by less (38.1% from 35.6%, a 2.5-point increase), and Asset-backed loans barely moved (6.6% from 6.3%) but are a rounding error on the total book. The total past-due share of the book - the more direct delinquency measure - rose a smaller 1.4 percentage points year-over-year, to 28.7% from 27.3%, and a steadier 2.4 points since FY2025's year-end close of 26.3%. Consumer loans are also the slowest-growing of the four products (gross book up 48.3% year-over-year, below the total book's 62.3% and far below credit cards' 76.3%), which rules out the simplest explanation - that a newer, still-seasoning book is just naturally carrying a higher day-one provision. A smaller, slower-growing book carrying a meaningfully worse loss ratio than a year ago is a genuine credit-quality signal, not the scale story FY2025's numbers supported.
One Country Segment Broke From the Three-Quarter Pattern of Decline
Brazil's direct contribution margin fell to a new low of 8.0% of revenue, while Mexico was the only one of the four country segments to improve sequentially. Brazil (54.4% of revenue) compressed to 7.98% from 9.95% at Q2 2026 and 11.85% a year ago - below even Q1 2026's 8.15%, the prior low in the twelve-quarter series this post's own Brazil chart carries. Mexico (22.6% of revenue) moved the other way, to 14.24% from Q2's 13.09%, even as its margin is still down 4.23 points year-over-year. Argentina stayed the most profitable segment by a wide margin (33.72%) but essentially flat with Q2's 33.88% - the softest reading of the year, continuing the peso-translation drag flagged in earlier quarters. Other Countries fell the most in percentage-point terms, to 8.96% from Q2's 14.04%, its softest margin since Q4 2023. See Four Countries, Mexico the Only One to Improve below.
The Prescription
MercadoLibre should break out Consumer loans' credit metrics from the rest of the lending book in its own disclosure, the way it already separates gross loans, allowance and write-offs by product in the loans-receivable footnote. Right now a reader has to build the per-product allowance-ratio table from the raw footnote numbers to see that Consumer, not credit cards, is where the quality is actually moving - the Company's own MD&A attributes the margin pressure from provisioning to "the expansion of our credit card portfolio," and separately credits the dollar growth in provisioning to "credit cards, consumer and merchant credits product growth" together, without ever flagging that it's specifically Consumer loans' own allowance ratio worsening while the credit-card book's improved. Management is already collecting and disclosing the raw numbers quarter after quarter; surfacing the per-product ratio themselves, the way NIMAL is already surfaced as a headline metric, would let a reader see this shift a quarter earlier than digging through the footnote math does.
What it should stop doing is treating the Brazil-Argentina tax dispute as a single resolved-or-escalating line rather than the three separate, overlapping legal fronts it has actually become. The original case lost its appeal in July and its motion for clarification in October; the "new legal strategy" opened in May specifically to argue for a lower rate already lost its own first-instance ruling in one of its two related cases, on July 30. Aggregate reasonably-possible-but-unaccrued tax and legal exposure grew from $622 million three months ago to $768 million this quarter. Running three parallel cases on the same underlying dispute, two of which have now each taken an adverse ruling in the same quarter, is not obviously cheaper than settling or consolidating the legal argument - see Beyond the Usual.
Key Financial Metrics
US$ billion; margin is operating income as a percent of net revenue, per quarter. Values are standalone quarters; 3 derived from annual, half-year or nine-month figures (Q4 2023, Q4 2024, Q4 2025).
Three months ended September 30, 2026 vs. three months ended September 30, 2025 - consolidated, reported in USD (MercadoLibre reports natively in dollars; no FX conversion is needed)
| Metric | Q3 2026 | Q3 2025 | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net revenues and financial income | $10,750M | $7,409M | +45.1% (+40.8% FX-neutral) |
| Adjusted EBITDA» | $982M | $933M | +5.3% |
| Income from operations | $676M | $724M | -6.6% (margin -3.5pp to 6.3%) |
| Net income | $448M | $421M | +6.4% (margin -0.4pp to 4.2%) |
| Adjusted free cash flow (Company's own non-GAAP measure, derived quarter-standalone) | $285M | n/a (not separately derivable from this quarter's filing alone) | - |
| Total cash, unrestricted (cash + short/long-term investments) | $8,126M | $7,633M | +6.5% |
Net income rose year-over-year even as operating income fell, entirely below the operating line: foreign currency losses narrowed to $72 million from $102 million, and income tax expense fell to $153 million from $215 million as the effective tax rate eased - a currency and tax story this quarter, not an operating one. Net income also fell 3.9% quarter-over-quarter, from Q2 2026's $466 million.
Where Q3 2026's Revenue Went
Net revenue, and how much of it was left as operating profit and net income, in one view. Figures are the same standalone-quarter figures as the metrics table.
US$ billion, Q3 2026. Thin slices are drawn at a minimum height so they stay visible; the printed values and percentages are exact. Operating costs are net revenue less operating income; other items & tax are operating income less net income.
Key Operational Metrics
| Metric | Q3 2026 | Q3 2025 | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross merchandise volume (GMV)» | $22,818M | $16,543M | +37.9% |
| Total payment volume (TPV)» | $108,801M | $71,224M | +52.8% |
| Unique active buyers | 94M | 77M | +22.1% |
| Fintech monthly active users | 93M | 72M | +29.2% |
| Number of items sold | 867M | 635M | +36.5% |
| NIMAL (net interest margin after losses) | 20.1% | 21.0% | -0.9pp |
| Provision for doubtful accounts (% of revenue) | 12.5% | 11.0% | +1.5pp |
NIMAL's year-over-year decline (-0.9pp) is the smallest of the last three quarters (Q1 2026 was -4.9pp, Q2 2026 was -2.3pp), and it actually ticked down from Q2's own 20.7% rather than continuing to recover - a flow measure (how MercadoLibre is pricing new credit risk) that has roughly stabilized, sitting alongside the stock measures above (how much of the existing book is already provisioned or past due) that kept moving in the other direction.
Commerce vs. Fintech: Two Businesses Still Growing in Step
MercadoLibre's own income statement reports by country, not by Commerce/Fintech line - the segment split below comes from the Company's own revenue-stream disclosure in its MD&A rather than a separately audited statement, so treat the margin comparison with that caveat (only the country-level figures in the next section are drawn directly from the 10-Q's segment note).
| Commerce | Fintech (Mercado Pago) | |
|---|---|---|
| Net revenue, Q3 2026 | $6,141M | $4,609M |
| YoY growth (USD) | +47.2% | +42.5% |
| Key volume metric | GMV $22,818M (+37.9% reported) | TPV $108,801M (+52.8% reported) |
| User metric | 94M unique active buyers (+22.1%) | 93M monthly active users (+29.2%) |
Commerce again grew slightly faster than Fintech in reported dollars (47.2% vs. 42.5%), extending the pattern from Q2 2026 rather than reversing it. No investor presentation was located or registered for this quarter (see the sources note at the end of this post), so the granular Fintech metrics this section has cited in earlier quarters - credit-card issuance counts, a broader assets-under-management figure - aren't available this quarter from a filed document; what follows instead comes directly from the 10-Q's own loans-receivable footnote (Note 4). The credit-card book - the fastest-growing piece of Fintech by dollar volume - grew 76.3% year-over-year to $8,467 million in gross loans receivable, but as the opening section showed, it's Consumer loans, not credit cards, where the loss-allowance ratio is actually deteriorating.
Four Countries, Mexico the Only One to Improve
| Segment | Revenue Q3 2026 | Revenue Q3 2025 | Direct contribution margin Q3 2026 | Direct contribution margin Q3 2025 | Margin change YoY | Margin change QoQ (vs. Q2 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brazil | $6,001M (+49.7%) | $4,009M | 7.98% | 11.85% | -3.87pp | -1.96pp |
| Mexico | $2,429M (+47.1%) | $1,651M | 14.24% | 18.47% | -4.23pp | +1.15pp |
| Argentina | $1,818M (+26.2%) | $1,441M | 33.72% | 39.70% | -5.98pp | -0.16pp |
| Other Countries | $502M (+63.0%) | $308M | 8.96% | 13.96% | -5.00pp | -5.08pp |
| Total | $10,750M (+45.1%) | $7,409M | 13.80% | 18.83% | -5.03pp | -1.39pp |
Every segment lost margin year-over-year, but the quarter-over-quarter picture is more mixed than Q2's read, where all four fell together. This quarter Mexico broke from the pack and improved, while Brazil and Other Countries both fell further and Argentina was essentially flat. The reconciliation from segment profit to the Company's reported operating income is a single line the filing itself doesn't break down further:
| Segment (measure: Direct contribution) | Q3 2026 |
|---|---|
| Brazil | $479M |
| Mexico | $346M |
| Argentina | $613M |
| Other Countries | $45M |
| Total segments | $1,483M |
| Not attributed to any segment (operating expenses and indirect costs of net revenues and financial expenses) | $(807)M |
| Income from operations | $676M |
Brazil
US$ million; margin is direct contribution as a percent of net revenues and financial income, per quarter. Revenue is Net revenues and financial income (segment note, external customers); profit is Direct contribution (segment note). Values are standalone quarters; some are derived from half-year, nine-month or full-year figures in the filings.
Brazil's direct contribution margin fell to 7.98%, a new low for the twelve-quarter series this post's own Brazil chart carries, below even Q1 2026's 8.15% low. Revenue grew a reported 49.7% to $6,001 million, with growth boosted slightly by the average 5.7% appreciation of the Brazilian real against the dollar this quarter (local-currency growth was 41.2%, below the reported figure) - a reversal of the currency-devaluation drag this segment has usually carried in earlier periods. The margin pressure itself is unchanged from the last two quarters: the Company cites higher shipping and carrier costs, a higher cost of goods sold on growing first-party sales, and the reduced free-shipping threshold introduced earlier this year, none of which reversed.
Mexico
US$ million; margin is direct contribution as a percent of net revenues and financial income, per quarter. Revenue is Net revenues and financial income (segment note, external customers); profit is Direct contribution (segment note). Values are standalone quarters; some are derived from half-year, nine-month or full-year figures in the filings.
Mexico was the only one of the four segments to improve sequentially, with direct contribution margin rising to 14.24% from Q2's 13.09% - still 4.23 percentage points below a year ago, but the first quarter since Q4 2025 this segment's margin moved in the right direction. Revenue grew 47.1% to $2,429 million (36.3% at constant currency, with the Mexican peso's 7.3% average appreciation again boosting the reported figure above the local-currency one).
Argentina
US$ million; margin is direct contribution as a percent of net revenues and financial income, per quarter. Revenue is Net revenues and financial income (segment note, external customers); profit is Direct contribution (segment note). Values are standalone quarters; some are derived from half-year, nine-month or full-year figures in the filings.
Argentina remained by far the most profitable segment at 33.72% direct contribution margin, though this is its softest reading of the year and essentially unchanged from Q2's 33.88%. Revenue grew 26.2% to $1,818 million, the slowest growth rate of the four segments, continuing the deceleration flagged in earlier quarters as the peso's translation effects work through the local-currency-functional-currency accounting this segment uses (Argentina is the one country where the Company's functional currency is the U.S. dollar itself, owing to the country's highly-inflationary-economy designation).
Other Countries
US$ million; margin is direct contribution as a percent of net revenues and financial income, per quarter. Revenue is Net revenues and financial income (segment note, external customers); profit is Direct contribution (segment note). Values are standalone quarters; some are derived from half-year, nine-month or full-year figures in the filings.
Other Countries posted the fastest revenue growth of the four segments (+63.0%, to $502 million) but the sharpest margin fall, to 8.96% from Q2's 14.04% - its softest margin since Q4 2023's 7.5%, though well above the segment's all-time low of 2.5% in Q3 2023. This is the smallest of the four segments by revenue (4.7% of the consolidated total), so a given dollar swing in costs moves its margin further than the same swing would move Brazil's or Mexico's.
Stock Price: A Fifth Straight Quarter Below June 2025's Peak
MercadoLibre's stock closed the quarter at $1,728.53 on September 30, 2026, up 1.8% from Q2's $1,697.39 but still 33.9% below June 2025's $2,613.63 closing high over the trailing two years. The close sits just above the window's lowest month-end reading, May 2026's $1,695.65, meaning the stock has spent most of the second half of this two-year window within a narrow band near its low rather than meaningfully recovering. No stock split falls within the two-year price window used here, so these are actual nominal prices, not split-adjusted figures.
Beyond the Usual
The tax dispute's new legal strategy already lost its first ruling
The Brazil-Argentina intercompany-services withholding-tax (IRRF) dispute flagged in each of the last several quarters is now running on three separate, overlapping fronts rather than converging toward resolution. On the original case (the one the Company lost on appeal in July), a motion for clarification filed July 30, 2026 was denied October 22, 2026, with the court's decision on that motion still pending publication before a further appeal can even be filed; the Company maintains its provision at the 15% withholding rate and has stopped making further judicial deposits in this specific case. On a separate, earlier-filed writ (a favorable first-instance ruling from December 2025, over intercompany management-services agreements), both the Company and the federal government filed their own appeals in August 2026 - meaning even the one favorable lower-court ruling in this dispute is no longer settled. And the "new legal strategy" opened in May 2026 specifically to argue for a lower 10% withholding rate - flagged last quarter as a way to limit the original case's exposure - already lost its own first-instance ruling in one of its two related cases on July 30, 2026 (Mercado Crédito's writ of mandamus), now on appeal; the other new case is still pending first-instance judgment after the Company's preliminary injunction request was denied in July. The total provision across these matters grew to $664 million (net of $625 million in judicial deposits, including $157 million of accrued interest income) from $632 million three months ago, and the Company's aggregate reasonably-possible-but-unaccrued legal and tax exposure - a separate, lower disclosure tier covering matters not yet provisioned - grew to $768 million from $622 million over the same three months.
The buyer protection program's exposure dipped for the first time, though the reserve gap stays enormous
Management's estimate of the maximum potential exposure under the buyer protection program was $9,182 million as of September 30, 2026, against a reserve of just $22 million - a roughly 417-to-1 ratio. What's notable is the direction: this is the first quarter-over-quarter *decline* in the maximum-exposure figure in the series this project has recorded: FY2025 year-end $7,953 million, Q1 2026 $8,100 million, Q2 2026 $9,292 million, now Q3 2026 $9,182 million. Management states plainly that it doesn't believe the theoretical maximum represents actual expected losses, based on historical claims experience, so one quarter's dip doesn't by itself say the underlying risk has changed - but it's the first data point in over a year that didn't simply extend the prior trend, and worth watching whether it's a pause or a blip.
A new $441 million contingent exposure from leased-and-subleased vehicles, not previously disclosed
The Company has signed lease agreements for vehicles used in its own shipping operations in Brazil, which it has then subleased to third-party carriers - but it remains secondarily liable for the entire term of the original leases. The estimated maximum potential future payments the Company could be required to make under these agreements, with an average remaining lease term of 38 months, is $441 million as of September 30, 2026, which the Company says it may possibly recover from the carriers if called on to pay. No provision has been recorded against this exposure, and it did not appear as its own disclosed figure in last quarter's filing.
An international development lender is now financing part of the credit book, as a subsequent event
On November 4, 2026 - the same day this 10-Q was signed - two Brazilian subsidiaries (Mercado Livre Brasil and the Mercado Pago payment institution) each entered loan agreements with the International Finance Corporation (IFC, the World Bank Group's private-sector lending arm) for a combined $735 million, split evenly between the two borrowers and further split between $250 million funded directly by IFC and $485 million funded by participating financial institutions for which IFC acts as lender of record. The Company has fully guaranteed both borrowers' obligations. The stated purpose is specific: financing the early settlement of credit-card receivables of micro, small and medium-sized businesses in Brazil's Amazon Region, a segment the filing names explicitly. No amounts have been disbursed yet; the Borrowers expect the first disbursement in November 2026.
The supplier finance program keeps compounding, up 46% since year-end
Obligations the Company has confirmed as valid to financial institutions under its supplier finance program - which lets suppliers request early payment on their invoices through participating banks - rose to $902 million as of September 30, 2026, from $819 million at Q2 2026 (up 10.1% in the quarter) and from $616 million at FY2025 year-end (up 46.4% in nine months). This is a standard working-capital tool that scales with the size of the payables book rather than a red flag on its own, but the 10.1% quarterly pace is faster than the Company's other disclosed multi-year commitments moved this quarter - the cloud/AI purchase commitment grew just 0.6% in dollar terms (to $3,522 million from Q2 2026's $3,502 million, with $1,695 million remaining) and the not-yet-commenced warehouse-lease total actually fell 6.1% (to $2,116 million, as some leases moved from "not yet commenced" to active) - worth watching for whether it keeps compounding at this rate.
Two more Brazilian tax rulings landed this quarter, in opposite directions
Separate from the IRRF dispute above, two other long-running Brazilian tax matters moved this quarter. On the ICMS-DIFAL interstate-tax dispute over fixed assets, Brazil's Superior Court of Justice ruled against taxpayers generally in June 2026 (Theme 1369); based on that ruling and outside counsel's opinion, management reassessed its own risk of losing as probable for the full disputed period (previously assessed as only reasonably possible for part of it) and recorded a liability of $4 million, net of $3 million in judicial deposits - a small dollar amount, but a precedent shift worth noting. Separately, on October 7, 2026 the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court ruled, in a case the Company is a party to (Theme 843), that including ICMS tax credits in the base used to calculate certain federal PIS/COFINS taxes is unconstitutional - a ruling that, if it stands once the court addresses whether and how it applies retroactively, would tend to favor the Company's position rather than the tax authority's. Management still assesses the risk of losing this specific matter as only reasonably possible, not probable, and has recorded no liability; the total disputed amount across the two related PIS/COFINS writs is $67 million.
Coverage Table
| Theme | Q3 2026 | Q3 2025 | YoY | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net revenue, reported | $10,750M | $7,409M | +45.1% | Fourth straight record quarter, but margin kept falling underneath it |
| Operating margin | 6.3% | 9.8% | -3.5pp | Third straight sequential decline, from Q4 2025's 10.1% |
| Consumer-loan allowance ratio | 34.8% | 27.3% | +7.6pp | The actual driver of the loan book's quality move - not the faster-growing credit-card book |
| Credit-card-loan allowance ratio | 18.8% | 21.5% | -2.7pp | Improved even as the dollar book grew 76.3% - scale isn't hurting this product |
| Brazil-Argentina tax provision | $664M | $501M (Q3 2025) | +32.5% | New legal strategy already lost its first ruling - see Beyond the Usual |
| Stock price | $1,728.53 | $2,336.94 | -26.0% | Up slightly QoQ but still well below June 2025's peak |
Target Valuation Range
The richest name in this peer set on revenue and earnings, both before and after this quarter's modest re-rating. At about $95.7 billion of enterprise value MercadoLibre trades at ~2.5x trailing EV/Revenue (down slightly from Q2's ~2.6x), ~24.3x EV/Adjusted EBITDA» (up from ~23.8x) and ~46.4x P/E» (roughly flat with ~46.2x) - the highest EV/Revenue and P/E of the seven e-commerce-and-fintech peers in the table below, while trailing Adjusted free cash flow improved to $1,206 million from $1,127 million.
In plain words: enterprise value (EV) is what the market says the whole business is worth - the value of all the shares, plus the debt MercadoLibre owes, less the cash and investments it holds. EV/Revenue and EV/Adjusted EBITDA divide that by a year of sales and a year of the Company's own non-GAAP profit measure so that businesses of different sizes can be compared; P/E divides the market value of the shares alone by a year of net income. The takeaway: among the peers below, MercadoLibre is priced the richest on both a sales basis and an earnings basis, a premium that assumes the revenue growth (45.1% this quarter) keeps compounding faster than the margin keeps compressing.
Shares outstanding (50,696,802) is the point-in-time count from both the balance sheet and the cover page - the same figure as of September 30, 2026 and again as of November 4, 2026, so no buyback or issuance moved the count in between. TTM revenue, Adjusted EBITDA and net income are each quarter's own filed standalone figure (Q4 2025 through Q3 2026); TTM Adjusted free cash flow uses the Company's own disclosed non-GAAP figure each quarter, derived quarter-standalone where the filing discloses only a cumulative year-to-date number, the same basis the Q2 2026 post established.
| Market cap → enterprise value | Q3 2026 |
|---|---|
| Share price (period-end, Sept 30, 2026) | $1,728.53 |
| Shares outstanding | 50,696,802 |
| Market capitalization | ~$87.63B |
| Total debt (incl. operating lease liabilities) | $16,154M |
| Less: unrestricted cash and investments | $8,126M |
| Net debt | $8,028M |
| Enterprise value | ~$95.66B |
Enterprise value rose from Q2 2026's ~$92.5 billion, on both a slightly higher share price and meaningfully higher net debt ($8,028 million from $6,425 million), as the loan book's own funding needs and the new current-and-non-current loans payable both grew faster than cash and investments did.
| Valuation multiples | Q2 2026 | Q3 2026 (TTM†) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| TTM Revenue | $35,182M | $38,523M | up |
| TTM Adjusted EBITDA | $3,892M | $3,941M | up |
| TTM Net income | $1,863M | $1,890M | up |
| TTM Adjusted free cash flow | $1,127M | $1,206M | up |
| EV/Revenue | ~2.6x | ~2.5x | down |
| EV/EBITDA | ~23.8x | ~24.3x | up |
| P/E | ~46.2x | ~46.4x | up slightly |
† TTM = trailing four quarters (Q4 2025 through Q3 2026), each quarter's Adjusted free cash flow taken as the Company's own disclosed non-GAAP figure rather than an operating-cash-flow-less-capex method, to keep the TTM sum on one consistent basis.
| Company (latest post) | Period and basis | EV/Revenue | EV/Adjusted EBITDA | P/E |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MercadoLibre (this post) | Q3 2026, September 30, 2026 close; EV = market cap + total debt incl. operating lease liabilities - unrestricted cash and investments; trailing four quarters | ~2.5x | ~24.3x | ~46.4x |
| Sea | Q2 2026, June 30, 2026 close; EV = market cap + convertible notes - cash and cash equivalents; trailing four quarters | ~2.1x | ~16.1x | ~36.1x |
| Nu | Q2 2026, June 30, 2026 close; EV = market cap + total liabilities (interest-bearing borrowings, financing, leases) - cash; trailing twelve months | ~2.9x | not in that post | ~17.9x |
| Alibaba | Q1 FY2027 (quarter ended June 30, 2026), June 30, 2026 ADS close; EV = market cap + total debt - cash and short-term investments; trailing twelve months | ~1.42x | ~13.9x | ~20.7x |
| PDD | Q2 2026, June 30, 2026 ADS close; EV = market cap + total liabilities - cash and cash equivalents; trailing four quarters | ~1.88x | not in that post | ~8.28x |
| Coupang | Q3 2026, September 30, 2026 close; EV = market cap - net cash (cash and equivalents less total debt); trailing four quarters | ~0.59x | ~36.8x (trailing, depressed by a weak profit quarter) | not meaningful (loss) |
| Grab | Q3 2026, September 30, 2026 close; EV = market cap - net cash liquidity; trailing four quarters of revenue; the EBITDA multiple is on FY2026 guidance, not trailing | ~1.9x | ~9.6x (on guidance) | not in that post |
The comparison is not exact - the companies differ in business mix, country risk and growth stage, their EVs are built differently (Sea adds only its convertible notes, Nu and PDD add all liabilities, MercadoLibre adds lease liabilities, Grab and Coupang use a net-cash basis), and Grab's and Coupang's EBITDA multiples rest on, respectively, management's own guidance and a currently depressed trailing figure, not a clean like-for-like trailing number. The honest reading is direction, not a precise gap: MercadoLibre is priced richer than every other name in this table on both revenue and earnings, a premium the market has kept paying even as this post's own numbers show margin compressing for a third straight quarter and the credit book's quality softening in Consumer loans specifically.
MercadoLibre, Inc.'s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on November 4, 2026. No separate earnings press release, shareholder letter or investor presentation was located or registered for this quarter, and no verbatim management-call transcript was located either, so this post does not include a management-commentary section and several granular Fintech metrics cited in earlier quarters' posts (credit-card issuance counts, a broader assets-under-management figure) are not available this quarter from a filed document. Historical MELI share price data covers month-end closes from December 2023 through September 2026.