MercadoLibre stock opened at $1,921.96 on Friday, sitting well below its 12-month high of $2,548.50 but above its 52-week low of $1,495.00. The market cap stands at $97.44 billion.
The company’s CFO, Martin de los Santos, sat down with Barron’s this week to lay out why he thinks the growth story is far from over. His case rests on one core number: Latin America’s e-commerce penetration sits at just 15%, roughly half of the U.S. rate.
MELI had 125 million buyers last year. The region has 600 million people. The math is not subtle.
Q2 earnings, released August 5th, backed up the confidence. Revenue hit $10.17 billion, beating the consensus estimate of $9.79 billion. EPS of $9.19 topped expectations of $8.65. Revenue was up 49.8% year over year.
Analysts now expect full-year EPS of $39.11. The stock carries a P/E of 52.27 and a PEG ratio of 1.31.
De los Santos was clear that MELI is no longer just an e-commerce play. Over 25 million people have taken credit through the platform, most for the first time. In Mexico, credit card penetration is only 15%, which the CFO pointed to as a major opportunity.
The company’s advertising business is also growing fast, up more than 50% year over year, though de los Santos acknowledged it’s still coming from a low base with only a 10% market share in Latin America.
In Mexico, MELI now has more than 1.4 million payment devices deployed, more than all other banks combined.
On the technology side, de los Santos pointed to AI as a key productivity driver. MELI employs around 20,000 developers. A year ago, AI helped them write code. Today, he said, human-written code is the exception.
Customer service has also become more efficient, and the company is building AI agents to help users navigate the platform and optimize advertising campaigns.
Chile is another market de los Santos flagged, growing 40% year over year in volume. Colombia and Uruguay were also mentioned as markets with room to expand.
On the institutional side, Advisors Capital Management recently bought 3,329 shares valued at approximately $5.65 million. Institutional investors now own 87.62% of the stock.
Analyst ratings skew positive. Eleven analysts have a Buy rating, six have a Hold. Morgan Stanley has an Overweight rating with a $2,450 price target.
Benchmark has a Buy with a $2,380 target after trimming it from $2,780 in May. The Goldman Sachs Group set a $2,100 target in May.
The 50-day moving average sits at $1,786.39. The 200-day moving average is $1,774.91. The stock’s beta is 1.34.
The post MercadoLibre (MELI) Stock: ‘Plenty of Room to Keep Growing,’ CFO Says appeared first on CoinCentral.
