MercadoLibre (MELI) Q3 2026 Earnings Call: 41% Growth, Margin Investment

Key Takeaways

• Net revenue and financial income increased 41% year over year on an FX-neutral basis, with Brazil recording the fastest country-level growth.
• Brazil commerce GMV rose 36% year over year. Items per buyer increased 16%, remaining in double digits after fully lapping the lower free-shipping threshold.
• Income from operations was $676 million, with a 6.3% margin, down 40 basis points sequentially as shipping and affiliate-program investments increased.
• FinTech monthly active users grew 29%, assets under management rose 67%, and the credit portfolio expanded 62%. The 15-to-90-day NPL ratio remained stable at 7%.
• Affiliate-generated orders increased 240% year over year, while MercadoLibre’s regional affiliate network surpassed 12 million participants.
• Management said it does not expect significant new investment categories in the near term, while continuing to fund logistics, free shipping, affiliates, AI and ecosystem engagement.

Core Financial Data

Business and Operating Performance

Commerce and logistics

Brazil remained the main commerce growth driver. MercadoLibre said lower free-shipping thresholds continued to encourage more frequent purchases and smaller baskets, reducing revenue per shipment but strengthening engagement.

Shipping represented an approximately 60-basis-point sequential margin headwind. MercadoLibre expanded fulfillment square meters by almost 20% quarter over quarter ahead of peak demand and future regional growth. Higher energy prices and temporary recruitment costs also increased expenses.

Underlying logistics efficiency continued to improve. In Brazil, FX-neutral cost per shipment fell 5% year over year and 14% compared with the period before the free-shipping threshold was lowered. In September, free shipments in the BRL 19 to BRL 79 range became variable-contribution positive for the first time.

Social commerce and affiliates

Sales and marketing expense increased 40 basis points sequentially to 11.6% of net revenue, mainly due to greater affiliate investment in Brazil. Affiliate orders rose 240% year over year, and the network reached more than 12 million affiliates across Latin America.

Management described affiliates as a strategic channel, although quarterly spending intensity remains tactical. The company expects economics to improve as more sellers and brands co-fund campaigns.

FinTech and credit

Mercado Pago delivered strong growth and profitability. Management said credit quality remained stable despite weaker industry conditions in Brazil and Argentina. The 15-to-90-day NPL ratio was 7%, unchanged both sequentially and year over year.

The company has become marginally more cautious in higher-risk Brazilian credit segments while continuing to grow in areas where risk-adjusted economics remain attractive. Management said Argentina’s NPLs improved across products and were close to historical lows.

Credit-card growth created some pressure on reported net interest margin because cards expanded faster than merchant and consumer loans. Management said this reflected product mix rather than deterioration in portfolio quality. Lower customer rates in Argentina also did not compress spreads, according to the company.

AI investment

AI investment increased by $30 million quarter over quarter. MercadoLibre cited improved search conversion and click-through rates, customer-service scalability, developer productivity and higher engagement with Mago, Mercado Pago’s AI agent.

Despite approximately $100 million of incremental AI spending year over year, the product development expense ratio improved by 70 basis points. Management said incremental search revenue more than compensated for the associated model costs.

MercadoLibre is also testing its own agentic shopping experience with a small share of users in its three largest markets. The company is prioritizing an in-platform solution and has decided not to provide its inventory to external platforms for now.

Management Outlook

Management expects investment priorities to remain broadly consistent, with no significant new spending categories anticipated in the near term. The company will continue allocating profits from areas such as advertising, credit and acquiring toward logistics, free shipping, affiliates, AI and other ecosystem initiatives.

For logistics, management expects a Q4 volume step-up to improve utilization of recently added capacity. Unit economics should improve as facilities fill, although MercadoLibre plans to continue adding capacity to support growth.

The company does not anticipate a steep near-term increase in quick-commerce investment. Its current pilot uses existing marketplace, payments and driver-network capabilities without committing to incremental infrastructure. Management said the model could become margin-accretive, but emphasized that testing remains at an early stage.

Risks and Watchpoints

• Higher energy prices are raising transportation costs, and management expects some of that pressure to persist.
• Lower free-shipping thresholds increase order frequency but reduce revenue per shipment because customers place smaller orders.
• New logistics capacity creates costs before corresponding volume arrives, temporarily pressuring gross margin and G&A.
• Credit conditions have weakened in parts of Brazil and Argentina. MercadoLibre has tightened selectively in higher-risk cohorts while prioritizing risk management over growth.
• Brazil’s reduction in the legal workweek could eventually require additional logistics employees. Management does not expect a material cost impact from the shift to a five-days-on, two-days-off schedule itself, but is preparing for shorter weekly hours.
• Competition in Argentina and social commerce remains an area of focus, although management said MercadoLibre’s commerce and financial-services positions remain strong.

Analyst Q&A Highlights

• Margin trajectory: Management attributed the sequential pressure primarily to logistics expansion, energy costs and affiliate investment. Capacity-related economics should improve with utilization, but affiliate spending will continue where returns are attractive.
• Quick commerce: MercadoLibre views faster delivery as a way to serve urgent purchases such as medicine and essentials. Current tests rely on existing infrastructure rather than a major new capital commitment.
• Credit risk: The company is reducing exposure selectively in riskier Brazilian segments, not broadly slowing credit growth. Marketplace and payment data allow adjustments by product, cohort, credit-line size and duration.
• Argentina profitability: Management emphasized MercadoLibre’s high commerce share and Mercado Pago’s role as a primary financial institution for many users, but did not provide a forward margin trajectory.
• Loyalty: Members receive commerce and FinTech benefits, including faster or free shipping, deposit remuneration and selected lending offers. Management said users active across both sides of the ecosystem are more engaged and more profitable.
• AI and agentic shopping: MercadoLibre said AI is already improving revenue generation and internal efficiency. Its own shopping agent is live with a limited user group, though management said results remain too early to disclose.

Full Earnings Call Transcript

Complete Earnings Call Transcript

Management Remarks

Richard Cathcart

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the MercadoLibre's Earnings Conference Call for the quarter ended September 30, 2026. Thank you for joining us. I'm Richard Cathcart, Investor Relations Senior Director at MercadoLibre. To begin today's call, Martin de los Santos, our CFO, will share a few opening remarks after which we will begin our live Q&A session, which will also include Ariel Szarfsztejn, our CEO; and Osvaldo Gimenez, President of FinTech.

Before we go into our results, I'd like to take a moment to highlight the launch of the MELI IR assistant available on our Investor Relations website. This is an AI tool that provides real-time answers to questions about our financial results operations and strategy based on our public disclosures. I invite you to explore it after today's call at investor.materi.com. As a reminder to participants on today's call, management may make or refer to forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measures.

So please refer to the disclaimer on screen and in our earnings materials that are available on our Investor Relations website. Please note that this call is being recorded, and a replay will be made available on our IR website afterwards.

With that, let's begin with a message from our CFO.

Martin de Los Santos

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. MercadoLibre delivered another quarter of strong growth with net revenue and financial income, up 41% year-on-year on an FX-neutral basis. Growth was broad-based across businesses and countries, with Brazil standing out with the fastest growth rate. We're particularly pleased with commerce in Brazil, where GMV growth remained strong at 36% year-on-year.

Users are shopping more frequently with us which is exactly the habit our investments are designed to build. Before we lower the free shipping threshold last year, items per buyer were growing at a single-digit pace. In Q3 2016, they grew 16% year-on-year. still double digits even after fully lapping the change. FinTech delivered another solid quarter with strong profitability. Monthly active users grew 29%, assets under management, 67% and and the credit portfolio, 62%, while NPLs remained stable despite a weaker credit environment in Brazil and Argentina.

Turning to profitability. Income from operations was $676 million, with a margin of 6.3%, down 40 basis points from last quarter. Two factors drove this, higher net shipping costs and higher sales and marketing spending as we continue to develop our affiliate program. These are deliberate investments. They reflect the trade-off we described in the shareholder letter. We are investing part of today's margin to accelerate the shift of commerce and financial services online in Latin America and to build lasting habits across our ecosystem.

Let me spend a few minutes on each of these 2 factors that compressed margins this quarter. Keeping was a net headwind of approximately 60 basis points versus last quarter for 4 reasons. The first is last year's decision to lower the free shipping threshold still working through. buyers responded by purchasing more often and in smaller baskets. And that means less revenue per shipment. We expected that and the engagement numbers say is doing what we wanted. The second is capacity. We added almost 20% to our fulfillment square meters quarter-on-quarter ahead of peak. That cost lands before the volume does. A pattern we have seen many times since we started operating fulfillment almost 10 years ago. This decision reflects our strong momentum and our confidence in future growth across the region.

The third is higher energy prices, which raised transportation costs. The fourth is temporary recruitment costs related to the expansion of our shipping network, which are booked in G&A. The first 2 are strategic choices investment in a stronger value proposition that builds online buying habits and investment in capacity to support the growth we see ahead. The third is outside our control, and we manage around it through pricing and efficiency. The fourth is temporary. While shipping compressed our margins in Q3, we're pleased that our network continues to become more efficient due to scale.

Specifically in Brazil, despite the headwinds from new capacity and higher energy prices, cost per shipment on an FX-neutral basis declined 5% year-on-year and 14% since before we lowered the free shipping threshold. And in September, free shipments in the BRL 19 to BRL 79 range were variable contribution positive for the first time. The second source of margin compression was sales and marketing, which rose 40 basis points sequentially to 11.6% of net revenue, still within our range of recent years. We calibrate the spend quarter-by-quarter and in Q3, we decided to invest more in our affiliate program in Brazil to strengthen our presence on social media.

Orders through the channel grew 240% year-on-year. consumers increasingly discover and buy products through creators and social media. In Brazil, more than 40% of social media users say finding products to buy is 1 of their main reasons for using these platforms. and we expect social commerce to keep gaining relevance across Latin America. Since we started investing in affiliates last year, our network has grown to more than 12 million affiliates across the region.

As more sellers and brands co-fund campaigns, we see a path to better economics for the program over time. Based on performance, we calibrate affiliate spending, dialing it up or down as opportunities evolve across markets. In summary, these investments weighed on margins this quarter, but the underlying economics of our business continued to improve. Our logistics network is more efficient, our credit card economics are better we gained operating leverage in product development even as we invest more in AI, and we are building new channels to acquire and engage customers. We believe these are the foundations for stronger earnings power over time. We remain focused on disciplined investment decisions that strengthen our competitive position and generate sustainable long-term returns.

With that, we'll open it up for your questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Andrew Ruben with Morgan Stanley.

Question-and-Answer Session

Andrew Ruben

I wanted to dig in more on the social strategy as you referenced it. I'm curious how big a part of the market you see social commerce being over time? And how MELI's right to win transfer is in an environment where more shopping is social and you're competing against some with that direct social focus. And then related to that, you framed the Brazil affiliates investment as tactical. I'm curious that framing as opposed to something more structural if the market is evolving in this manner.

Martin de Los Santos

Andrew, Ariel here. Thanks for your question. So on the 1 hand, we can do as much as we can or want to design the way we want to capture demand. But in the end, we need to be where the demand and the attention is an affiliate marketing is part of that playbook. There is some broader shift in how consumers discover and potentially buy some products Social media in general is becoming an additional channel for Discovery many times incremental. And that happens whether we like it or not.

So that's a bit on the framework and the way we are thinking about buying incremental transactions through affiliates. In general terms, we continue to think that organic traffic driven by frequency by the very best value proposition coming from price, selection, the best shipping and the best financing will continue to be the majority of the volume in e-commerce in the future. But still, we need to be where the consumers are.

And in that regard, building our network of affiliates and building a value proposition around that for consumers is part of our strategy in order to continue building what we think is the very best place to buy online in Latin America. Clearly, we see other social players growing in the region, they are mostly focused on low ticket items for certain categories. Our value proposition is a bit broader across categories, across price ranges.

But on top of that, we have been building our own social capabilities for the last 2 years, and that's not only affiliates, it's also live also clips and videos within our Infinite role and so on. And we are sure that us combining those social capabilities with the assets that I was referring to before in terms of brand in terms of selection, pricing, financing and shipping, put us in a unique position in order to capture the opportunity in commerce in LatAm, which combined with our ability to deploy our ecosystem in financial services. Really gives us an edge to continue competing and continue gaining market share across the region.

Ariel Szarfsztejn

If I can complement Andrew, the mentioned tactical is the intensity this particular quarter, we intensified a little bit of investment. But it's a strategic initiative for us to develop this channel. We have been doing it for several quarters now.

And as I mentioned, we have reached 12 million affiliate members of the affiliate program. So that's an area of investment that we will continue to pursue. And as we improve the unit economics, it should contribute to margin eventually.

Operator

The next question is from Irma Sgarz with Goldman Sachs. .

Irma Sgarz

You very helpfully laid out the sources of pressure to logistics cost, but also the progress that you're making from an underlying basis and a cost to serve more broadly and you also characterized in both your prepared remarks and just now in the answer to the step-up in affiliate marketing spend in Brazil technical.

So with the overall top line metrics and engagement KPIs also remaining so strong and putting this all together, it does feel like the inflection point for margins should be coming within the line of sight here. So my question is, are there any other potential new larger investment buckets perhaps of the size of what you did in Brazil in terms of lower ASPs that you're looking to lean into or perhaps a combination of a couple of different buckets that you're looking to lean more aggressively into from here?

This is a question around cadence of investment cycle. And connected to that, perhaps as you think about moving to the next investment fronts in e-commerce, I was hoping to just get an update on how you're thinking about the opportunity set in quick commerce specifically in Brazil and whether we should think of that as more of a gradual effort or 1 where the investment curve could steep?

And if so, what could trigger that decision I remind Martin here. Thank you for your question. I think for the most part, the areas of investments will continue to be similar to the ones that you have seen. As you know, we have other initiatives that we're pursuing at a smaller scale and we're going to elaborate a little bit on Darasandso on. But the others of investments will continue to be the same. Our approach is the 1 that we have been describing over the past several quarters where we have certain businesses that are growing very nicely that are delivering profits to our ecosystem, called advertising growing 58% year-on-year.

Our credit portfolio growing at 52% year-on-year and acquiring business growing at 42% year-on-year and we're using some of those profitability to reinvest in other areas of the ecosystem. The approach is to manage for the long term. We are not targeting a specific short-term margin target. We have a short-term margin target. But we are convinced that it's the right way to go to capture the large opportunity in front of us. We are very disciplined in the way we invest.

We set out targets of both engagement as well as path to profitability on all of the investment areas that we have in front of us. And when we see that they are performing well, we pursue them. If they're not, we reiterate and in some cases, we stopped them. So that's the playbook that we have been following. In the short term, I don't see significant new areas of investment. We announced recently this quarter in September, expansion of our free shipping program in Argentina, mostly to our minimized users.

So that could be an area of investment, but similar to what we have done in Brazil. So I would say that there will not be a significant deviation to what you have seen.

Ariel Szarfsztejn

Let me complement Martine made serial with our views on quick commerce and proximity. But before jumping into the general concept, let me try to attack your potential more relevant concern, which is economics. We have not announced with no any steep change in investments we think that we can actually build a business that might be accretive to margins, not far from today, but we are piloting a learning.

Having said that, let me give you my 30,000 feet view on that one. I think we have proven over and over that the better the speed, the better the conversion rates in our apps. Particularly when thinking about e-commerce speed at most matters more for some purchases than others when someone needs something now such as medicine and essential gift people have historically gone to a local store in order to get those items.

Fast delivery is the lever that we think can help us tackling that market segment, and we see proximity as a layer within our marketplace for items where buyers expect that speed. And we are building that offering initially based on our existing capabilities, Flex, our marketplace, payments, minimize and the network of merchants and that's basically what we are testing with aura, shipments from the seller doorstep into the buyer using our cloud of drivers without committing to any incremental infrastructure.

Our ambition continues to be the same, to be the destination for shopping online in Latin America, and this is another layer in the value prop that expands the shopping journey that we can serve. Eventually, there are more models that we can test and learn in the future. But as of today, I would say there is no speed change or inflection point in our investment mindset behind e-commerce.

Operator

The next question is from Robert Ford with Bank of America. .

Robert Ford

Martino Sao Richard. In your letter to shareholders, you mentioned the investment in developing habits, but it's really more than that, isn't it -- it's also about building a dominant a comprehensive value proposition in ecosystem. And I'm curious, where do you think you are in that part of the journey, especially in things like low ASPs, which were somewhat disruptive and lower income groups and social and cross-border.

And is there a value up to the merchant out there as well that we should be mindful of? And how are you thinking about the value prop for the supply side in comparison with your biggest competitors.

Ariel Szarfsztejn

Bob. So let me try to address your question from a general view. I think we see a great result beyond what we were expecting with the combination of all the investment levels that we have been pulling over the last, I would say, 18 months. So engagement has been going up from existing consumers. Buying frequency has been going up. New buyers has been consistent in our commerce platform. Payments Mercado Pago has been growing very, very rapidly. We see more people using Mercado Pago to save to invest and to pay across Latin America.

So I would say our whole thesis beyond investing in order to build an ecosystem that can drive engagement and scale, which will, in the long run, drive efficiencies and maximize shareholder value is actually evolving exactly how we thought about that. The second part of your question, which is merchant side of our value prop I think we've made tremendous progress as well. We have been growing successful sellers and successful listings at our fastest pace for many, many years. And that's because of 2 things.

On the 1 hand, because we see demand growing in the platform and basically merchants follow demand, but simultaneously because we have put in place some adjustments in take rate in value proposition for those merchants to bring more selection into MercadoLibre. And overall, we are excited with the combination of demand flowing in, frequency, increasing and supply increasing at the same time.

Operator

The next question is from Marcelo Santos with JPMorgan.

Marcelo Santos

I wanted to ask a bit about credit. So so far, you have been doing quite well on the metrics. But like when we see countries like Brazil, we see deteriorating trends in the system, you are getting larger, how are you seeing this going forward? I mean, I think the environment is getting a bit tougher. Do you feel the need to step a bit on the breaks or on the malafide so far so good and you can keep a good speed. .

Martin de Los Santos

Thank you. Marcelo, I'll say that so far, so good. We have seen very good results on the credit front across countries. I think you specifically asked about Brazil, I imagine. I would say that given the information we have and our discipline on risk management management, we have been able to continue to grow, but also reducing risk at the margin basically. So we have been able to continue to grow across most segments. On the most like segments, we have been a little bit more cautious. And what we are seeing is stability across products are 50 to 90 NPLs was 7%, stable both versus last quarter and a year ago, and we continued growing at 62%.

And beyond Brazil, I'd say in Argentina, NPLs have improved across all products close to historical lows despite weakness in the industry. And coming back to Brazil, I would say that an important advantage is that the marketplace gives us information before we end. And we see how users buy, how they pay, how they use installments. And this brings us a quality users to Marcelo pat at a very low cost. And we can adjust very specifically by product, by with cohort by the size of the credit line or by the duration.

And if we see signs of deterioration either in the marketplace behavior or in cedent, we pulled back. So far, as I mentioned, has been very little and mostly in Brazil, but we will always prioritize risk management of our growth, but we will pursue I'd say, opportunities when we are comfortable with the risk.

Operator

Next last question is from Rodrigo Gastim with a DBA.

Rodrigo Gastim

Just would like to double-click here on this topic about credit in Brazil. Just to understand specifically in the quarter, you had any positive impact from the government's debt renegotiation program, Sinhala if that quite helped during the quarter. And you mentioned during the latter is likely deterioration in NIMO for other products other than cards. If you just could give us a little bit more details here precisely what type of product, what type of country, it would be very helpful. That's it. Thank you, guys. .

Osvaldo Giménez

Rodrigo. Let me start with the role. We did participate in the San Rola in Brazil from the end of July until the end of the program. We I would say that during the period of burn, we also joined Serasa's discount campaign is Contaco and we'll run along it. And I would say that overall, there was some positive impact this this quarter because of that. But I would say, overall, it's small compared to the size of our portfolio. We have a $19 billion portfolio.

So the impact has been rather small compared to the portfolio. Nonetheless, it's interesting. We always like to participate, and it has a positive impact, the second can you repeat the second part of the question, please?

Rodrigo Gastim

You mentioned during the latter, yes, yes, it's likely deterioration of the name some products other than cards that happened and why in which country, if you could just give a little bit more details here.

Osvaldo Giménez

Yes. I'd say that let me start with credit card. I'd say that we are happy with how Predica has been evolving basically in Brazil, we are seeing improvement in existing cohorts. And now we have a larger base of mature and maturing cohorts. And we're also seeing strong unit economics in Mexico and Argentina. And so we are happy with how the business is developing across these markets. But also, obviously, the pace of issuance matters, and we issued as many cash as we could this quarter, this was a record for us and the faster we issue relative to the size of the matter book, the larger the near-term cost even when the economics of which cohorts are sound. And so I'd say this has been improving.

And with regards to the other products, there's nothing has changed because overall, the change in NIM is due to the change in the relative size of the product with credit cards growing faster than merchant and consumer loans, but merchants loans continue to be super healthy. my complement. We don't see any deterioration in any other of the portfolios. If there is a slight compression on margins because we lower interest rate that we charge to certain customers in Argentina because the spreads enable us to do that. But there's no we continue to see very healthy books in all of our portfolios in all of the countries where we operate.

Operator

The next question is from Josh Beck with Raymond James. .

Unknown Analyst

Yes. I wanted to ask about some of the AI comments. So I believe you mentioned internally, the investment was up million sequentially, but there's certainly benefits that you're seeing relative to search and customer support. So if you were to kind of carve that out in terms of flow through to either contribution profit or operating profit? Is it a positive contribution to the business today? Or is that something that you see maybe happening over time as you adopt more open source model if the cost per token down.

So that's kind of 1 question internally. And then externally, we've certainly got a lot more questions about genetic shopping, and it has seemingly showed up as a very small percentage of GMV for certain businesses, at least in the U.S. Just kind of curious where you stand on that. opportunity, do you see it as a channel for maybe new lead generation for new customers? Are you having conversations with some of these third-party agents, would you be willing to let them open up and shop on the Meli platform.

Martin de Los Santos

Thank you Josh, it's Martin here. Thank you for your question. Indeed, on the latter, we explained that we continue to invest behind AI. As you mentioned, we increased the investment quarter-on-quarter by $30 million. I would continue to see very, very good results both consumer-facing as well as internal efficiencies. Consumer facing, we mentioned the Mago, which is the AI agent on our fintech platform that continues to increase engagement with our users. We see NPS improving because of ago, we see better engagement with our platform, more of their funds coming to Marcato Pago.

So all positive signs because of that. There are certain other initiatives that we mentioned on the latter. We can see the exact return on investment. For instance, we included an LLM on the search algorithm we can see through the incremental conversion and the click-through rate that we're seeing in those such results, we can see that the costs of the models are more than compensated by the incremental revenues that we're generating. Customer experience for for a couple of years now, we have seen significant scale because of AI and obviously, the productivity of our developers, which continue to increase generating more coal testing better, getting fewer rollback.

So all the metrics that we measure are very effective in terms of productivity. Now the way to see it through the P&L, I think a good example to that is the fact that -- we continue to scale our product development line even though we have that $100 million incremental spending year-over-year, so when you put the cost of our developers plus the cost of AI, we continue to scale this particular quarter, we see 70 basis points patio last year. So we are very comfortable with the investments that we're making.

And we believe we can leverage AI being a technology company, we can leverage AI by creating better products and by becoming more efficient and doing more better things faster and cheaper, the same team that we have today. within Mali.

Ariel Szarfsztejn

So let me build on this last comment of Martin and take the question on Agentic shopping. We clearly see agenetic shopping as an opportunity to accelerate the structural shift from off-line retail into online retail. But specifically, the way we're thinking about this is not necessarily by integrating ourselves to third parties, right? So we continue to look at what's globally happening, trying to learn, and we're always ready to get new things and adapt. But for now, we have decided not to provide our inventory to any external platform.

Our priority is still to build the best genic experience inside Marcadolibre, taking advantage of the 27 years of first-party data that we have our unique combination of selection, pricing, logistics, financing, loyalty and so on. So e-commerce is much more than just search and find trust is built further down the funnel through all the key variables that I was just mentioning, and that's exactly what we excel at, right?

So we think that we can combine our strength with an agenetic experience within MercadoLibre. And with that, we believe that we will be able to sustain the high levels of direct traffic to our app or our properties through that assets that we are building. Today, our own agent is already available to a small portion of our user base in our 3 largest markets. Results are early, but promising -- it's too early to share. I'm sure we will do so in the future. But our Agentic experience is now a reality, and it's not just an idea.

And taking a step back in the same way I started I think the broader point is that AI is accelerating the shift from opline retail into online and our organization with our technology is very well positioned to fully take advantage of the power of AI in order to fulfill our mission.

Operator

The next question is from Deepak Mathivanan with Canaccord Cantor Fitzgerald. .

Deepak Mathivanan

Are, first, with the Brazil elections now behind us, can you talk about whether Mali's strategic priorities have changed at all in any capacity? Is it a continuation of the same? Are there any new priorities you need to focus, perhaps more focused on affordability or cross-border or any others? And then maybe 1 for Martin. You've improved the value prop of the loyalty program meaningfully in many of your key markets, can you talk about what are some of the other ways you can kind of continue to drive penetration for loyalty in the next, say, 2 to 3 years? And also maybe share some color on how loyalty members compare versus nonmembers in terms of frequency profit or maybe other KPIs. Thank you so much.

Unknown Executive

So I will not try to get into predicting Brazilian macroeconomics and dynamics. But let me say that I don't think these elections actually change the future of MercadoLibre materially. We've gone in the last 27 years through governments with many political inclinations and here we are, in that sense, across many elections and many governments, the secular opportunities in commerce and in fintech have outweighted and outlasted politics dynamics, and we expect that to continue to be the case.

And with that, our focus remains on the same thing, which is capturing the shifts that are happening structurally in the industries where we operate building a resilient business that you sell want to return to -- and the opportunities remain the same, and we are going to put all of our efforts and focus in capturing them. In terms of loyalty, we have seen significant progress in terms of our loyalty program. We have seen acceleration in terms of the number of users that enroll into a program.

Obviously, as we improve the value prop. Last year, we improved made a big improvement in the value prop when we lower the free shipping threshold, and that resulted in a significant increase in number of users in Brazil. We recently announced an improvement in Argentina, where we expanded the free shipping offering for our loyalty programs, loyalty members, and that also resulted in increased number of members. And I think if you step back and you look at our loyalty program, the big difference that we have is the ability -- because we operate in an ecosystem, the ability to provide benefits on both sides of the ecosystem. So you get -- if you remember, of the loyalty program, you get faster and free shipping, but also you get better remuneration on your deposits, better interest rates on some of your loans and better offers in your marketplace and so on.

So that's the critical competitive advantage that we have. And as we mentioned in the letter, when we look at users that operate on both sides of the ecosystem, what we call them ecosystem users, those are a lot more engaged with our platform. They tend to buy more on MercadoLibre to bring more money to the Mercado Pago platform, and they are a lot more profitable to us. So the loyalty program is a critical part of -- is a critical tool for us to continue to creating more ecosystemic users by bringing users from the marketplace into Barca do Pago and Visa Versa. So very optimistic about it and making great progress on that front.

Operator

The next question is from Neha Agarwala with HSBC.

Neha Agarwala

First, on the payment side of the business, you're showing very strong volume growth. But if I look at the yield for the payment acquiring business, there seems to a bit compression that you're seeing sequentially.

Could you shed some light on the trend that we should expect for the take rate for the payment business? Is there any particular geography where higher growth is leading to a bit of margin compression.

And my second question is on size related to asset quality, we see some slowdown in the growth for the consumer unsecured portfolio. And I understand you're growing the credit card on the other hand. But are you strategically a bit more comfortable with growth in the merchant side of the business rather than unsecured personal loans in any specific market? Or is that a stint you think could be better for asset quality given the trends in Brazil and Argentina in general. So any color on that would be very helpful.

Osvaldo Giménez

So I would say that the main change was was -- there used to be some margin pressure in the last quarter, and that was driven mostly by an increase in POS devices driven by an increase in memory costs. And I would say the main change from last quarter to this 1 is the reversal of the temporary POS device restocking effect that weighted last quarter, particularly in Mexico. And last quarter, we have, on the 1 hand, had a larger inventory following strong device sales and higher prices for memories. And so what we are doing is prices continue to be high, but we have stopped building an inventory upfront.

Basically, we have enough of an inventory. Now this effect has the East in this quarter. That doesn't mean that the price cost pressure has disappeared. We continue to manage the procurement of inventory while investing in merchant acquisition.

Deepak Mathivanan

Let me complement you with Oswaldo with 1 comment on take rates, particularly for acquiring Argentina, I would say we are very comfortable with the take rate and margin trajectory for any given segment in acquiring in Argentina and in general out there. Then there's an issue with speed of growth of each segment, right? So you can see changes in the overall margin or take rate of our acquiring business, depending on how fast we managed to move up market or to grow our existing user base, but there's nothing to call out there concerning us, and nothing to mention on the expected trajectory of the margin for that business.

Osvaldo Giménez

From a P&L perspective, it's a business that's grown very rapidly 42% year-on-year. And even though take rates are coming down because of move-up market, continue to deliver very healthy profit margins, as aldo mentioned. And then with regards to -- I think the second question was regarding both merger lending and consumer lending and whether we are more comfortable vortalending. We, in general, have more leverage with merchant lending, but we are -- I think nowadays equally comfortable with both with merchant lending, when we have 2 different kind of merchants, those who are selling online or selling on the marketplace.

And there, it's easy to collect because we can afford the collections of theirselves in the marketplace. Now when it comes to POS merchants, they usually mostly in Brazil have more than 1 device and therefore, they can switch providers. And so it is important to be able to score them in a good way as it is with consumers. So I'd say in both cases, we are equally comfortable, and we are seeing good dynamics in both markets.

Operator

The next question is from Craig Maurer with FT Partners.

Craig Maurer

I wanted to return back to the operating margin. You called out a number of drivers that weighed on the margin in the quarter. And look, I was wondering if any of those are going to necessarily reverse? Or are these costs that are going to be in the model until we grow over them next year. So any help there would be great because the margin is clearly what continues to weigh on sentiment around the stock.

Martin de Los Santos

It's Martin here. Thank you for your question. Let me go a little bit deeper into the margin compression that we're seeing quarter-on-quarter that might help you identify what's going on, in particular, on shipping. On the shipping part of the business, we had a conversion of roughly 60 basis points, right? Basis points are on an OpEx and 20 basis points on -- sorry, 40 basis points are on COGS and 20 on OpEx, okay?

For the most part, the shipping contraction was because of expansion of our footprint, logistic footprint. We do this every third quarter, moving into peak season in the fourth quarter. this particular year, we increased our capacity quarter-on-quarter by 20%. And given the size of our logistics infrastructure is a lot compared to a year ago, we were it by only 10%. So there's a significant growth in our footprint, and that creates some headwind in terms of cost in this particular quarter. So that -- we expect that part of that to come back -- we also saw some increases on fuel costs and energy costs. We passed some of those to our consumers on pricing, but not all of them.

So there's some pressure there that we expect that to remain. And then on the other hand, we had 40 basis points of investment on affiliate. As we mentioned earlier, affiliate is an area where we are planning to continue to invest -- this particular quarter, we increased our level of investment by 40 basis points compared to last quarter. But if you look at on a broader perspective, the sales and marketing line of our P&L, we are operating within the range of 11% to 12% and which is a range that we have operated for the past several years.

I hope that helps you understand the moving parts in the area. And let me complement Martin with a high-level strategic view on margin trajectory. I think for the last 18 months, we've said the same thing in every 1 of these calls. We're investing because the opportunity in front of us is large. And because deeper engagement is what builds a durable leadership position in this market. We have accepted a lower margin to do that. And I think we've been open on that regard. And our investments are working, which is a very important thing. Users are buying more often transacting and saving more with MercadoPago, and we are gaining market share in every major market in both commerce and fintech.

We are being disciplined about it. We are investing only where we see the economics work and adjusting where they don't work. We're also very mindful of risk, which you can see in the evolution of our NPLs, which are close to record lows in every single country and product and the most engaged user base at scale and a deeper ecosystem penetration is what builds earning power over time, and this is the approach we believe will maximize long-term cash flow and shareholder value.

Operator

The next question is from Lucas Alves Lustano with Santander.

Lucas Alves Lastino

The question I want to touch on logistics capacity once square meters increased almost 20% quarter-over-quarter ahead of season, creating pressure margin in -- how quickly do you expect the capacity to be filled and should largely not in 2027 or the current or not single or so you would be...

I'm sorry, Mr. Lusitano, unfortunately, your line is cutting in and out, and we're not really able to hear you. .

Gentlemen, would you like me to promote the next caller? Okay. So why don't we move to the next question, and then we can take a look at the end. .

The next caller is Kaio Prato with UBS. .

Kaio Penso Da Prato

Hello, good evening. Thanks for the opportunity I would like to double check to information on credit, please, in Brazil. First is to confirm that you are already reducing the pace of growth given the current landscape, just to understand if this is right, and second, if you can share with us if it's possible to share the nominal impact from the dissent your numbers, just to understand what would be the recurring level of provisions or NMO.

And lastly, on credit -- you mentioned about the NIM pressure coming from lower rates in Argentina. Just trying to understand what is the stage of this today. We have been noticing the banks reducing rates as well. And this is to be trend now. So just wondering if we could see further pressure on NIM coming from that in the coming quarters as well.

Ariel Szarfsztejn

Thank you. Garo. Let me try to address all of those points. Let me start with this rollout. As I mentioned, it's fairly small. It's not a relevant number. So we have not disclosed it, and I think it's very doesn't really move the needle. And when I think the third question was regarding NIM and if there could be some pressure from Argentina, I would say that is not the case.

In the case of Argentina, as you know, interest rates have been coming down throughout the year, and we had reflected some of those lower rates in the lower general interest rates in the lower rates we charge to our users, but that has not created a compression in our spreads in Argentina continue to be very healthy. I would say the change in NIM is mostly related to change in mix by credit cards growing faster than the rest of the credit book.

Now you mentioned -- I think the first 1 was regarding the speed of growth. And there, I would say, we have been a little bit more cautious in Brazil before the in the last quarters, I would say we have been a little more cautious, but this has been marginal. It has been specific to those segments that were more risky. We have been able to continue growing at a fast pace, but we have been more cautious on those segments that would be more risky because we were aware of what we have seen in the market, both in Argentina and in Brazil with some of our competitors and rest of the industry.

Again, our spread has to continue to be very healthy. But on the margin, we have been being a little more cautious. In general, what we do is this we like to see several growth opportunity, we think profitable, but we always put risk management ahead of growth.

Operator

We have another analyst from Santander, who's joined. So I'm going to promote him next, Lucas Estevez with Santander. .

Lucas Esteves

Thank you. Can you hear me better now? Yes, we can. Go ahead, please. Okay. Sorry for the confusion. I wanted to touch on Argentina's exposure to cross-border competition since the country has historically carried a structurally higher margins than the rest of the business. As the market normalizes, competition increases and the operating environment becomes more similar to your other markets, how should we think about the sustainability of that margin premium?

Are these structural reasons Argentina should remain more profitable? Or should we expect profitability to gradually converge towards the rest of the region? And if I may, just another point in logistics capacity and economics. Fulfillment square meters increased almost 20% quarter-over-quarter ahead of peak season, creating pressure in both gross margin and G&A. How quickly do you expect that capacity to be filled? And should the associated costs largely dilute in 2017? Or does the current growth outlook require another similar large capacity step up next year?

Ariel Szarfsztejn

Lucas, ariel here. So let me try to answer the question a bit differently to how you ask given that we don't give forward-looking statements on where margin trajectory is going to be. I think we have a unique position in Argentina. On the 1 hand, Mercado Pago is the primary financial institution for many, many, many Argentinians.

On the other hand, e-commerce market share for us continues to be very high. And although some of the Asian competitors out there have gained some market share the beginning of this year and the end of last year, we've seen the situation a bit more stable. And we are very bullish on our ability to continue improving our value proposition, removing frictions in the marketplace for consumers to continue choosing MercadoLibre as the primary destination for shopping and for financial services in the country. We'll see what happens to margin in the future. I'm sure we will have time to discuss that, but there's no particular comment that I can bring in order to answer more specifically the question on margin trajectory.

Operator

The next question is from Pedro.

Unknown Analyst

There was the second part of the question. There was the second part of the question that I wanted to address. If you could remind us what it was, please. Yes, it was about logistics capacity and economics as we increased almost 20% quarter-over-quarter fulfillment square meters ahead of peak season. How quickly do you expect that capacity to be filled? And should the associated costs largely dilute in 2017? Or does the current growth outlook require another similarly large capacity step-up next year?

Ariel Szarfsztejn

Let me first say that when you see an increase in capacity in this particular case, which was 20%, as I mentioned earlier, much larger than before, is not only for peak season, which is going to happen this quarter, but also for the future growth that we see in that market. So we are optimistic of people moving online and growth remaining there. In terms of the speed at which that capacity fills up, it depends.

Obviously, there will be a step-up function in Q4. But then over time, we will continue to fill up and that obviously helps in terms of unit economics. But as you know, we'll continue to invest in new facilities throughout the year, maybe not at the pace that we're growing in Q3 because of peak season. But every quarter, we do increase capacity to keep up with the growth of the market. remember, we're growing in Brazil, north of 40% items shipped for the past 5 quarters.

So if you can imagine that, that requires a lot of capacity to be put into place. But over time, each new capacity as it fills up, obviously improves unit economics, but then you have new ones coming into place in the following quarters.

Operator

Our next question is from Pedro Tarasia with XP. .

Parth Talsania

Martin. Most of the topics I wanted to discuss were already answered, but maybe it would be very helpful if you could share what are your thoughts on the 61 workweek schedule approved in Brazil recently. So the labor journey has been -- is expected to change. And I would like to know what is the expected impact on our logistics costs for 2027 maybe? And how much of it can automation offset or maybe your thoughts on this topic, please?

Ariel Szarfsztejn

Pedro, Ariel here. So in Brazil, the standard or schedule has been 6 days on 1 day of up to 44 hours a week, and that has been the case for many years. As you know, a constitutional amendment approved in October, moves the country to 5 days on, 2 days off and shortens the legal work week from 44 hours into 40 with no salary adjustments.

And clearly, the impact that we'll see in our logistics force. I think you were asking about the 5 to specifically. And I would say the following. In August, before this approval, we proactively reorganized our logistics operation in Brazil to a 5 to 2 schedule, 5 days on, 2 days off with the same 44 hours weekly work. And we did that because it lets us fit our working hours better with the demand demand flowing through our fulfillment centers and service centers with less idle time and lower spending on staff transportation and mills and we actually expect that to improve the turnover over time.

So because of this, we don't actually expect any material cost impact of that shift in the future, and we are optimistic about that. On the second change in the country, we are preparing for the next stages where the working week will be gradually reduced. I think it's a bit early -- on that regard, clearly, we need the hours in order to process all the demand that is flowing through our network, which in the end will mean that we will need more employees in our logistics operation. I think the scheduling of efficiencies from the 5 to 2 will help absorb part of the change from the $40 million to $42 million change and also the natural turnover in our workforce will give us some flexibility to test different comp schemes in the future as well.

So not much more to say. Time will tell how we adapt to this, but this does not change our strategy or our ambition in Brazil. We continue to work in finding efficiencies, automating our warehouses and capturing the benefits coming from scale, I'm sure next quarter, we will be able to share more details on what happened to complement on automation, still at a relatively low scale, but we triple the automation investments the volume that we're automating within our fulfillment infrastructure, not only in Brazil but also in Mexico.

Operator

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Ariel Sharstein for any closing remarks. .

Ariel Szarfsztejn

Thank you. So the most important thing in this quarter's results is the following. Our users are doing more with us, and it is costing us less to serve each of them. Those 2 factors together are at the heart of how we think about this business, engagement, build scale, scale scale makes us more efficient, and efficiency gives us the flexibility to create capabilities that better -- to better serve our users in the future. Our investments are clearly paying off.

We continue to gain market share. We continue to bring in more customers and frequency and engagement with our platforms are reaching new levels Mercado Libre is extending its leadership as the go-to destination for shopping in Latin America. MarcadoPago is getting closer to its objective of becoming the regional largest digital financial services provider in the region and the opportunity ahead of us is huge in commerce and in fintech, and we are convinced that our strategy is the best way to generate shareholder returns in the long run. We continue to be disciplined. We continue to be mindful of risk, and we continue to be bold as well.

Thanks all for joining, and we are looking forward to engaging with you in the coming days.

Operator

This brings to a close today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day. .