Coupang, recovery in payment transactions after personal data breach... April MAU records 34.4 million users

According to data from the IGAWorks Mobile Index, Coupang’s estimated settlement amount for credit cards and debit cards in April 2026 is 4.6069 trillion Korean won. This figure is 3.8% higher than October 2025 (4.4366 trillion Korean won) before the incident was officially disclosed, and it is also up 3.0% compared with November of the same year (4.4735 trillion Korean won). The settlement amount for March 2026 also reached 4.6165 trillion Korean won, up 4.1% from October 2025 and up 3.2% from November 2025. Coupang’s settlement amount showed a declining trend in December 2025 and February 2026 after the incident was announced, but starting in March it returned to the 4.6 trillion-won band and remained at a similar level in April.

This recovery momentum is closely tied to the service system Coupang has been building. Coupang’s selling points include midnight rocket delivery, fast delivery focused on food and daily necessities, and its paid membership model, Wow Membership. Through these efforts, it continuously strengthens the effectiveness of keeping everyday spending within its platform. This means that once usage habits are formed, it becomes difficult for users to switch to other platforms. Coupang Inc. Chairman Kim Beom-seok also said during the 2026 first-quarter earnings call held on the 5th in Korea time that the growth rate of product e-commerce sales hit a low point in January, but improved every month afterward, and the pace of recovery accelerated further from February to March. He also explained that even after the personal information leak incident, most existing customers and Wow members did not leave; by the end of April, as former members who exited re-registered and new members increased, about 80% of the reduced number of Wow members had been restored.

From the standpoint of user metrics, Coupang’s market dominance remains strong. Coupang’s monthly active users (MAU, users who use the app at least once a month) in April 2026 were 34.40 million, far ahead of Naver Plus Store, the No. 2 shopping e-commerce app, at 8.14 million. Coupang’s concentration effect is also especially evident among core consumer groups with higher purchasing power. Analysis shows that 90% of VIP users in the shopping categories use Coupang, and among groups with stronger purchasing power—such as residents of upscale apartments, the top 5% income group, and owners of imported cars—Coupang’s market share is 2 to 4 times that of its competitors. This means that not only does Coupang hold an advantage in terms of raw access numbers, but it also performs better among customer segments with a higher likelihood of purchase conversion.

However, from the perspective of the overall market, not all platforms show the same trend. In terms of settlement amount in April 2026, G Market recorded 386.7 billion Korean won, up 12.0% from October 2025; Kurly also recorded 153.0 billion Korean won, up 8.4%. By contrast, 11st Street was 229.8 billion Korean won, down 9.6%. In the lineup of China’s cross-border e-commerce platforms, AliExpress was 826.2 billion Korean won, down 7.2%, and Temu was 657 billion Korean won, down 2.4%. However, because consumers in the domestic e-commerce market have a strong trend of using multiple shopping apps at the same time, it is difficult to determine long-term pros and cons based solely on short-term data. The settlement amounts in this round are also estimated using artificial intelligence algorithms for the number of credit cards and debit cards, and they do not include Naver’s settlement data. While this trend is very likely to support Coupang’s advantage position in the short term, given the recovery in trust in personal information protection and the strengthening of services by competing platforms, there is still room for the competitive landscape to change in the medium to long term.