Reading the CEO's Mindset Through Coupang's Q2 2025 Results
Every time Coupang announces its earnings, the market pays more attention to 'Kim Beom-seok's next move' than the actual numbers. The Q2 2025 results were no exception. While the achievement of $8.524 billion in revenue (16% YoY growth) and six consecutive quarters of profitability are important, the strategic mindset of Chairman Kim Beom-seok hidden beneath these figures is far more intriguing.
Through these results, I wanted to conduct an experiment: reverse-engineer objective metrics to dissect the brain structure of Kim Beom-seok as a CEO. The result revealed several distinctive characteristics that set him apart from typical e-commerce CEOs.
The Master of Timing: When to Control Profit and Loss
Kim Beom-seok's first characteristic is his unique sense of 'timing.' He doesn't scale businesses all at once. Instead, he employs a strategy of utilizing infrastructure through stages: 'Design → Losses → Optimization → Leverage.'
This is clearly evident in the Q2 results. The Product Commerce segment's adjusted EBITDA margin exceeded 9%, a result of maximizing the efficiency of existing infrastructure without new investments. The gross profit margin's improvement of 230 basis points YoY to reach 32.6% follows the same logic.
During the conference call, Kim Beom-seok mentioned, "Our model allows us to continuously utilize fixed infrastructure at increasingly larger scales." This isn't simply about economies of scale. It's a strategy of building infrastructure in advance and 'letting it sit' until leveraging it at optimal timing. It's about building logistics centers worth hundreds of billions of won in advance, waiting until the market is ready, then ramping up utilization rates all at once.
The Hidden Logic Behind Taiwan Obsession
Kim Beom-seok's second characteristic is his thoroughness in 'selection and concentration.' The Taiwan strategy best exemplifies this approach.