Kim Beom-seok, chairman of Coupang Inc., emphasized global business growth and customer value provis..

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Kim Beom-seok, chairman of Coupang Inc., emphasized global business growth and customer value provision such as Papeci and Taiwan.

Chairman Kim said in a fourth-quarter and annual earnings conference call on the 26th, “Everything starts with customers and ends with customers in Coupang. We work from a customer’s point of view, dreaming of a world where both are possible, where customers can enjoy the best experience at the lowest price. Only when these two are provided in harmony can they provide a true ‘wow’ experience, he said.

“The mission to continuously change the lives of customers based on innovation and operational excellence was also valid in the past year,” he said. “I am confident that the more value we give to our customers, the more we will repay them with faith and trust.”

Chairman Kim said he has made efforts to enhance the customer experience by providing various services.

“We tried to make significant changes to upgrade the fulfillment and logistics processes, and we were able to increase same-day or early-morning delivery (midnight orders, arriving at 7 a.m.) by nearly 45% in the fourth quarter,” he said. “The order deadline for same-day delivery can also be extended by two hours.”

“We have expanded the scope of rocket delivery the next day, including the installation of rockets for thousands of items such as large home appliances, furniture, and car tires, and have also increased the number of fresh food early morning delivery products by more than 30 percent,” he said. “100% of the selection of fresh foods guarantees free same-day and early-morning delivery and guarantees delivery within a few hours of order.”

He also said that with the recent launch of early morning delivery on Jeju Island, early morning delivery and fresh food delivery have been introduced in more islands and mountains in Korea, customers can receive free delivery by 7 a.m. if they order by midnight.

Chairman Kim also stressed that constant innovation is the driving force behind not only growth but also improvement of “process and profit.”

“Better processes lead to better outcomes for customers,” he said. “We constantly innovate on behalf of customers to reduce costs while raising standards for service quality.”

Last year, it explained that it eliminated “process waste” and improved trunk costs by 16% in the process of upgrading the fulfillment logistics process.

Chairman Kim noted that robotics and automation are the key drivers of Coupang’s efficiency improvement.

“We have made significant investments to simplify operations, almost doubling our automated fulfillment and logistics infrastructure ratio last year, which improves productivity while increasing employee convenience,” he said.

However, he emphasized, “Despite these developments, we are only just beginning to take advantage of the enormous potential of automation, and the proportion of highly automated infrastructure is only in the low 10% of the total infrastructure.” This means that there is a long runway left for further improvement.

“AI, which performs trillions of predictions every day from robotics used in networks, will be the next wave of innovation and will lead to higher levels of growth and revenue expansion in the years to come,” Chairman Kim said.

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In addition, Chairman Kim said, “What is important is that Coupang’s growth story is spreading beyond Korea to the world,” and mentioned examples of growth in global businesses such as Taiwan and Papeci.

“I believe that the Korean-made playbook (success manual) can be successfully applied to other markets,” he said, adding that Taiwan, the first overseas market, is a good example.

“Taiwan Rocket Delivery’s net sales in the fourth quarter of last year showed significant momentum, growing 23% compared to the previous quarter and operating at a significant scale,” he said. “Most of Taiwan’s growth was organic, which proved the differentiated customer experience we built.”

Regarding Papeci, he said, “It’s another story to pay attention to,” adding, “Papeci, which was acquired early last year, was losing hundreds of millions of dollars annually and faced a decline in growth indicators. Despite such difficulties, it was a rare opportunity for Papecchi to be an industry leader with annual transactions of $4 billion and a global brand in luxury fashion,” he said, explaining the background of the acquisition.

“We applied the same persistent and systematic execution as the identity of Coupang’s operation last year when we acquired Papeci, and simplified the operation,” he said. “We made difficult decisions so that we could focus on only two really important things: customer experience and operational excellence.”

Regarding this year’s business strategy, Chairman Kim said, “We will continue to invest in huge opportunities with innovation, controlled operational style and long-term perspective, with customers as our top priority.” It also predicted that margins could be increased by improving utilization of automation technology and optimizing supply chains.