Coupang, Inc. (CPNG) Business

Item 1. Business

The Company

Coupang is a technology and Fortune 150 company listed on the New York Stock Exchange that provides retail, restaurant delivery, video streaming, and fintech services to customers under brands that include Coupang, Eats, Play, Rocket Now, and Farfetch. We serve millions of customers in over 190 countries and territories around the world.

We have organized our operations into two segments: Product Commerce and Developing Offerings. These segments reflect the way we evaluate our business performance and manage operations. Information on our segments is included in Part II, Item 7 “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations — Overview — Segment Information.” Financial information for our segments is included in Note 3 — “Segment Reporting” to the consolidated financial statements included in Part II, Item 8 of this Form 10-K.

Our Customer Experience

We are committed to building a one-of-a-kind service for our customers designed to provide them with the best selection, savings, and service. Our approach focuses on controlling the entire end-to-end experience – from technology and automation to fulfillment and logistics – so we can continually raise the bar for what customers expect.

The technology, infrastructure, and operational excellence we have built allow us to invest in customer experiences and new, adjacent services. Capabilities originally developed to deliver general merchandise at speed have evolved to support fresh grocery, food delivery, digital entertainment, payments, and other services – all designed to make our customers’ lives easier.

Across our markets, customers benefit from one or more of our core experiences built around speed, convenience, and reliability including:

•Fast, reliable delivery experience, ranging from next-day, dawn, and even same-day delivery, with order cutoffs as late as midnight;

•Broad selection, spanning daily essentials, general merchandise, fresh groceries, luxury, and specialized niche categories;

•Frictionless returns, designed to be as simple and customer friendly as ordering; and

•Digital services, such as streaming entertainment and secure payments.

Through our WOW membership offerings, customers receive additional value – such as delivery benefits and service perks – further reinforcing a seamless, high-value experience.

Whether through local commerce, international selection, food delivery, or global marketplaces like Farfetch – which connects customers with some of the world’s leading luxury brands – we combine technology, fulfillment, logistics, and customer obsession to deliver an exceptional customer experience.

Our Merchant Experience

Small and medium-sized enterprises (“SMEs”) on Coupang form an essential part of our business, and we strive to make it easy for SMEs to reach customers all over the world with our comprehensive end-to-end support. We have invested billions of dollars to expand artificial intelligence (“AI”) technologies and other innovations, helping to accelerate the growth of hundreds of thousands of SMEs around the world. In the United States, for example, sellers ship their products to one of Coupang’s U.S. facilities, and Coupang’s world-class fulfillment and logistics teams receive, store, pick, pack, and ship those products directly to customers. Coupang’s online retail services are helping U.S. brands drive billions of dollars in international sales every year. And in the Republic of Korea (“Korea”), more than 75% of our SME sellers are based outside Seoul, supporting regional businesses and more balanced economic development. We have reimagined traditional online commerce to strengthen local businesses. By streamlining the entire supply chain through direct sourcing and mobile fulfillment sites, Coupang enables faster delivery of high-volume, locally sourced products. This helps small businesses reach more customers, grow sustainably, and thrive in an increasingly connected marketplace.

At Coupang, we continue to develop new ways for SMEs to unlock growth through offerings such as Coupang’s Private Label Brand, which develops and markets high-quality products under our private label at affordable prices. As more SMEs partner with Coupang on private label products, more jobs are created. We also launched Rocket Overseas to customers in Taiwan, empowering SME partners to unlock growth by connecting with customers in other countries, bringing savings and convenience to both customers and merchants.

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We offer merchants of all sizes around the world the opportunity to sell through Coupang and provide effective solutions to improve customer experience and enhance demand generation. Our fulfillment and logistics by Coupang offering in Korea (“FLC”) empowers merchants by offering them access to our industry-leading fulfillment, logistics, and customer network services.

The Farfetch marketplace connects luxury sellers with customers and offers brands direct-to-consumer distribution.

Advertising

We also have offerings for our suppliers and merchants to advertise on our websites and mobile applications.

Our Competition

We compete with: (1) offline, online, and omnichannel retailers, suppliers, distributors, manufacturers, and producers of the products we offer and sell to consumers and businesses; (2) online search engines, comparison shopping websites, social networks, web portals, AI shopping tools, and other online and app-based means of discovering, using, or acquiring goods and services, either directly or in collaboration with other retailers; (3) companies that provide retail merchant services; (4) companies that sell grocery products online and offline; (5) on-demand food delivery services; (6) companies that provide fulfillment and logistics services for themselves or for third parties; (7) companies that provide online advertising products and services; (8) on-demand streaming entertainment services; (9) financial services companies, including credit card issuers and payment platforms; and (10) companies that sell luxury goods.

Seasonality

Our overall operating results may fluctuate from quarter to quarter as a result of a variety of factors, including seasonal factors, weather conditions, economic cycles that influence consumer spend, our ability to attract and retain new customers, and the impact and timing of holidays. For additional information, see the risk factors herein in Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors” in this Form 10-K, including those under the sub-caption “The seasonality of our business affects our quarterly results and places an increased strain on our operations.”

Human Capital

Our global team of employees is the driving force in creating a one-of-a-kind experience for millions of customers. In the same way our employees aim to go above and beyond for our customers, we aim to go above and beyond for them. As of December 31, 2025, we directly employ approximately 108,000 employees, the majority of which are located in Korea, making us one of the largest private sector employers in the country. We believe our direct employment model, along with competitive wages, training and safety programs, and a broad range of comprehensive benefits, empowers our diverse set of employees to deliver the “wow” experiences for our customers we strive to create every day.

Most of our employees are frontline workers in our fulfillment and logistics operations, and we make their health, safety, and wellness a top priority. We've made significant investments in health and safety initiatives that helped strengthen our leading safety record, which is one of the best in the Korean logistics industry and globally1. These investments include Coupang Care, the first paid health promotion program of its kind at scale for logistics workers in Korea. Coupang has also launched several Coupang Care initiatives in Taiwan, including mobile health checkups and a comprehensive employee assistance program. We believe the well-being of our employees is directly tied to the success of our business, and most importantly, our impact on our customers.

Intellectual Property

We rely on a combination of patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, license agreements, confidentiality procedures, non-disclosure agreements, employee non-disclosure and invention assignment agreements, and other legal and contractual rights to establish and protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights.

We have trademark rights in our name and other brand indicia and have trademark registrations for select marks in Korea, the United States, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and various European countries, and other jurisdictions around the world. We also have registered domain names for websites that we use in our business, such as https://www.aboutcoupang.com and similar variations.

We control access to and use of our proprietary technology and other confidential information through internal and external controls, including technical and administrative security controls and contractual protections with employees, contractors, customers, partners, and other third parties. It is our practice to enter into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements (or similar agreements) with our employees, consultants, and contractors involved in the development of intellectual property on our behalf. We also enter into confidentiality agreements with third parties in order to limit access to, and disclosure and use of, our confidential information and proprietary information. We further control the use of our proprietary technology and intellectual property through provisions in our website terms of service.

1 Measured using work-related and accident-related fatalities.

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Our design logos, “Coupang,” and our other registered or common law trademarks, service marks, or trade names appearing in this Form 10-K are our property or our affiliates’ property. Other trade names, trademarks, and service marks used in this Form 10-K are the property of their respective owners.

Government Regulation

Government regulation impacts key aspects of our business. In particular, we are subject to numerous national, state/regional, and local laws, legal requirements, standards and regulations in Korea, the United States, Taiwan, Japan, China, the United Kingdom, various European countries, and other jurisdictions where we operate. These laws and regulations, which are subject to change, involve matters that are often central to our business, including our interactions with customers, suppliers, and merchants. They regulate fair trade and pricing, competition, labor and employment, workplace safety, privacy, data protection, data use, intellectual property, consumer safety and protection, advertising, import, export and international trade, payments, tax, shares of our Class A common stock, and other subjects. These regulations are often complex and subject to varying interpretations, in many cases due to their lack of specificity, and as a result, their application in practice may change or develop over time through judicial decisions or as new guidance or interpretations are provided by regulatory and governing bodies, such as federal, state/regional, and local administrative agencies.

For additional information, see the risk factors in Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors” in this Form 10-K including those under the sub-caption “Risks Related to Laws, Regulation, Intellectual Property, and Technology”.

Company Website, Social Media, and Availability of SEC Filings

Our corporate website address is https://www.aboutcoupang.com, our investor relations website is https://ir.aboutcoupang.com, and we also provide updates on https://news.coupang.com. Information on our websites is not incorporated by reference herein and is not a part of this Form 10-K. We promptly make available on our investor relations website, free of charge, the reports that we file or furnish with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), corporate governance information (including our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics) and select press releases. We file with the SEC annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, proxy, and information statements and amendments to reports filed or furnished pursuant to Sections 13(a), 14, and 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). The SEC maintains a website at www.sec.gov that contains reports, proxy and information statements and other information regarding Coupang and other issuers that file electronically with the SEC.

Investors and others should note that we may announce material business and financial information using our investor relations website (https://ir.aboutcoupang.com) and through https://news.coupang.com, our filings with the SEC, webcasts, press releases (including those on our investor relations website and https://news.coupang.com), conference calls, and social media. We use these mediums to communicate with investors and the general public about our company, our products, and other matters. It is possible that the information that we make available on our investor relations website and https://news.coupang.com may be deemed to be material information. We therefore encourage investors and others interested in our company to review the information that we make available on our investor relations website and https://news.coupang.com. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the information contained on our investor relations website and https://news.coupang.com as referenced in this paragraph are not incorporated by reference into this Form 10-K or any other report or document we file with the SEC.

Any updates to the list of disclosure channels through which we will announce information will be posted on our investor relations website or https://news.coupang.com.