U.S.-listed e-commerce giant Coupang Inc. reported record annual sales for 2025 despite a massive data breach that hurt fourth-quarter results. Founder and Chairman Bom Kim issued his first in-person apology to customers during Friday's earnings call. This follows a written apology in late December.
Coupang Inc. released its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 earnings on February 27, 2026 (Korea Standard Time). Annual sales reached a record 49.11 trillion won (US$34.3 billion), up 18.9 percent from the previous year. Net income more than tripled to 303 billion won from 94 billion won, while operating profit rose 12.7 percent to 679 billion won.
Fourth-quarter performance, however, suffered from the data breach. Sales increased 15 percent to 12.81 trillion won, but operating profit plunged 97 percent to 11.5 billion won from 435.3 billion won. The company swung to a net loss of 37.7 billion won from a profit of 182.7 billion won. Coupang stated that the incident adversely affected revenue growth, active customers, paid WOW memberships, and profitability starting in December.
The breach occurred last year, with Coupang initially reporting only about 3,000 accounts affected. A joint public-private inspection later determined over 33.6 million user accounts were exposed. The company offered a 50,000 won compensation package per user.
Founder and Board Chairman Bom Kim apologized during the earnings conference call, marking his first public in-person remarks on the matter. "Everything Coupang has achieved has been driven by our single goal of delivering a Wow experience to our customers. We are doing our utmost to earn customers' trust, as nothing is more serious for us than failing to meet their expectations," he said. "We know we have to do better, and we will."
Growth in Coupang's retail and delivery segments, along with new businesses, supported the strong full-year results.
