S. Korean firm makes Wall Street splash
Delivery company Coupang’s shares surge 40% after stock goes public
Coupang, a startup founded by a Harvard Business School dropout, has shaken up shopping in South Korea, an industry long dominated by huge, button-down conglomerates.
In a country where people are obsessed with “ppalli ppalli,” or getting things done quickly, Coupang has become a household name by offering “next-day” and even “same-day” and “dawn” delivery of groceries and millions of other items at no extra charge.
The company, which is sometimes called the Amazon of South Korea, got a big endorsement Thursday from Wall Street. Its shares closed at $49.25 on the New York Stock Exchange, up 40% from an initial public offering price of $35.
The offering raised $4.6 billion and valued the company at more than $102 billion, the second-largest U.S. tally for an Asian company after Alibaba Group of China in 2014.
Coupang may need the money. South Korea’s big conglomerates, called chaebol, and others are building their own delivery networks as Coupang plans its expansion. It faces other issues, too, such as growing concerns about working conditions after the death of several Coupang warehouse and delivery workers that some relatives and labor activists blamed on overwork and poor labor practices.
For the moment, Coupang is South Korea’s biggest e-commerce retailer, its status further cemented by people stuck at home during the pandemic and those in the country who crave faster delivery.
As Bom Suk Kim, who started Coupang in 2010, likes to say, “Our mission is to create a world where customers wonder, ‘How did I ever live without Coupang?’”
When Coupang began its “rocket delivery” service in 2014, it set off a price and delivery war. It has since built its own network of logistics hubs, with 70% of the population now living within 7 miles of a Coupang logistics center, according to the company.
The company doubled its workforce to 50,000 in 2020, becoming South Korea’s third-largest private-sector employer. It plans to create 50,000 more jobs by 2025.