With a loss of 107.9 billion in one year, South Korean e-commerce platform SSG still wants to sprint for IPO

Recently, foreign media reported that SSG.com , an online shopping mall under the Shinsegae Group of South Korea , plans to go public. It is understood that SSG.com intends to apply for a preliminary IPO review in April this year, with Mirae Asset Securities and Citigroup Global Markets Korea Securities working on its IPO.

SSG.com is focusing on increasing sales before its IPO .   GMV in 2021 was 5.7 trillion won (about 30.2 billion yuan), an increase of 22% over 2020 and doubling from 2019 ( GMV in 2019 was 2.9 trillion won).

At the same time, net sales also rose. SSG.com's net sales last year were 1.49 trillion won ( about 7.9 billion yuan ) . This is an increase of 15.5% compared with the same period last year .

It should be noted that despite the increase in sales, SSG.com is still in a loss-making state, and the loss margin has further expanded. Data shows that SSG.com lost 81.9 billion won ( about 430 million yuan ) in 2019. By 2020, the loss margin narrowed to 46.9 billion won . However, in 2021, SSG.com widened its loss margin again, losing 107.9 billion won.

Despite this, SSG.com still received the favor of investors. At the same time as the financial report was released, SSG.com also released relevant capital increase information. Two private equity funds, Affinity Equity Partners and BRV (Blue Run Ventures ) , added 300 billion won ( about 1.6 billion yuan ) of investment funds to SSG.com .

Foreign media analysis said that the most important thing for SSG.com before its IPO is to gain market dominance. It not only reflects how much sales the e-commerce platform can currently generate, but also reveals future growth prospects.

In this process, whether or not to make a loss is not a very important factor. Coupang has proved this itself. Although the company has never made a profit so far, it successfully listed on the New York Stock Exchange and raised 5 trillion won (about 26.5 billion yuan ) .

Currently, SSG.com has a market share of 2.5% in South Korea. Although it seems small, you should know that South Korea's Shinsegae Group spent 3.4 trillion won (about 18 billion yuan) to acquire eBay Korea last year. If the merger of SSG.com and eBay Korea is completed, its market share will increase to 15%, which will be close to Naver's 17% and exceed Coupang 's 13.7%.

E-commerce

IPO