How Kim Beom-seok's 'Revenue Brain' Operates

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.

Coupang's Taiwan business showed remarkable performance in Q2 2025: 54% quarter-over-quarter growth, triple-digit YoY growth, and a 40% increase in active customers compared to Q1. Kim Beom-seok evaluated it as "growing faster and stronger than our most optimistic projections set at the beginning of the year."

But why Taiwan? Based on my analysis, Taiwan was the 'perfect testing ground' for Kim Beom-seok. With a population density of 653 people/km² (1.3 times that of Korea), it offers high logistics efficiency; an urbanization rate of 79% favors last-mile delivery; and an annual e-commerce growth rate of 15% provides sufficient market potential.

More importantly, there's cultural similarity. The success of Korean SMEs' expansion to Taiwan through Coupang proves this. Some companies saw their Taiwan sales through Coupang increase by 70 times, 10 times. This means Coupang functions beyond a simple distributor to become a 'K-brand export platform.'

Kim Beom-seok's withdrawal from Japan follows the same logic. To him, the Japan exit wasn't a failure but a strategic concentration of resources. Betting everything on high-probability wins—this is Kim Beom-seok's style of wagering.

Paradoxical Investment Philosophy: Unafraid of Losses

Kim Beom-seok's third characteristic is his unique perspective on losses. While typical CEOs would try to minimize losses, Kim Beom-seok boldly invests in 'necessary losses.'

This is clearly visible in the Developing Offerings segment. Revenue grew 33% to $1.19 billion, but adjusted EBITDA expanded losses to -$235 million. Nevertheless, Kim Beom-seok didn't reduce investments.

He prioritizes long-term trust building over short-term profit maximization. This is why Coupang chose the heavy path of 'direct sourcing + fulfillment' when many platforms focus on advertising revenue. While platform fees could generate short-term profits, he focuses on securing long-term loyalty through customer experience.

This resembles Amazon's Jeff Bezos, but there are differences. While Bezos pursued economies of scale, Kim Beom-seok pursues 'economies of experience.' It's a strategy of continuously raising customer expectations to make life unimaginable without Coupang.

Genius in Data Interpretation

Kim Beom-seok's fourth characteristic is his ability to interpret numbers. He reads the 'story behind the numbers' rather than surface-level indicators.

For example, when looking at a 10% customer growth rate, most would interpret it as 'more customers,' but Kim Beom-seok sees it as 'customers' lifestyle patterns have changed.' Indeed, he read structural changes in customer loyalty from data showing "continued strong growth across all customer cohorts."

The fact that new customers follow existing customers' growth patterns means Coupang has created 'learnable habits.' This signifies not mere service usage but lifestyle transformation.

The 25% increase in Rocket Fresh sales can be interpreted from the same perspective. Success in the most demanding area of fresh food signals that Coupang has penetrated deep into customers' daily lives.

Evolutionary Thinking About AI and Technology

Kim Beom-seok's fifth characteristic is his approach to technology. To him, AI isn't simply a cost-reduction tool but a 'capability amplifier.'

The "achieving 50% code generation through generative AI" mentioned in the earnings announcement isn't mere automation. This represents upgrading Coupang's DNA itself. It means utilizing AI as a source of creativity rather than efficiency.

GPU Business Challenge: Technical Preparation for Asian Expansion

Kim Beom-seok's sixth characteristic is 'investing in the present for future preparation.' The most striking example of this was participation in the government's 1.46 trillion won GPU project.

In June 2025, Coupang surprised the industry. Beyond existing cloud computing infrastructure companies, the participation of Coupang, a retail company, created a stir in the industry. Coupang jumped into the 10,000 GPU procurement project alongside Naver Cloud, Kakao, and NHN Cloud.

Ultimately, the three companies excluding Coupang divided approximately 13,000 units among themselves. However, Coupang's participation in the GPU business wasn't simply about winning a government contract. This was a strategic move for Kim Beom-seok's bigger picture.

Industry insiders interpreted Coupang's GPU business participation as "a strategic move to prepare for full-scale transformation into a cloud service provider (CSP) beyond simple government project participation." Particularly, since Amazon originally built data centers for its own retail services and later opened them to external parties to optimize idle resources, launching the cloud business AWS, Coupang's intentions can be understood in this context.

Korea's relatively low electricity rates were likely included in Kim Beom-seok's calculations. In GPU-intensive AI computing, power costs are one of the core competitive factors. This suggests Kim Beom-seok approached this not merely for domestic Korean GPU business but as a dimension of securing technical infrastructure for Asian expansion.

More importantly, it's about timing. At this point, preparing for Southeast Asian expansion based on Taiwan's success, securing GPU-based AI capabilities is essential. To analyze and optimize each country's language, culture, and consumption patterns through AI requires powerful computing power as support.

Although this GPU project bid failed, for Kim Beom-seok, this would have been a learning process. Considering his mindset, he likely already prepared alternative and contingency plans. He would try to achieve the same goals through building proprietary GPU infrastructure or overseas cloud partnerships.

Blueprint for Global Expansion

All these characteristics combined reveal Kim Beom-seok's ultimate vision. He dreams of becoming 'Asia's Amazon,' but his approach is unique.

While Amazon expanded from the US to the world, pursuing economies of scale through sequential category expansion, Kim Beom-seok builds a perfect model in Korea, then targets Asia starting with culturally similar regions, competing through experience differentiation.

Coupang's current market capitalization is around $38.5 billion, but some investment banks suggest the possibility of an $80-85 billion valuation. If Kim Beom-seok succeeds in global expansion while maintaining current operating leverage and margin structure, this could become a realistic target.

Conclusion: Designed Art

Kim Beom-seok's brain structure can be defined in one sentence as 'a perfectionist with long-term greed.' He's unafraid of short-term losses but won't tolerate long-term failure; he pursues customer satisfaction but ultimately dreams of market dominance; he talks innovation but wins through execution.

The GPU business participation and rejection are the same. To him, this experience wasn't a failure but reconnaissance for preempting the Asian AI market. He would have already prepared alternative routes to achieve the same goals without depending on government projects.

The Q2 2025 results aren't just numbers. They are an artistic work where the dreams, obsessions, and meticulous calculations of one human named Kim Beom-seok are embodied in figures. And this artwork isn't finished yet.

It's not about Coupang conquering Asia, but making Asia choose Coupang. This is the future Kim Beom-seok envisions. And what he's building now isn't short-term profits, but the system itself that can control profits.

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This is part of the STREAMLINE: Beyond Logistics Playbook by BEYONDX series.