MercadoLibre Is the Amazon of Latin America ... or Is It?

Key Points

• MercadoLibre is Latin America's leading marketplace, offering comprehensive logistics and advertising services.

• Mercado Pago gives it a stickiness Amazon doesn’t have, embedding it in both commerce and finance.

• While Amazon is leaning on AWS and Prime businesses, MercadoLibre is betting big on fintech.

• 10 stocks we like better than MercadoLibre ›

When investors talk about MercadoLibre (NASDAQ: MELI), the phrase that comes up almost automatically is "the Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) of Latin America." The comparison isn't wrong. MercadoLibre runs the region's leading online marketplace, has built its own logistics backbone, and is increasingly monetizing sellers with advertising.

But stopping there misses the bigger picture. MercadoLibre isn't just Amazon transplanted south. It's a hybrid of e-commerce and fintech that Amazon itself has never truly built. And that difference could be what makes it one of the most important growth companies in Latin America.

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Where the Amazon comparison holds up

At its core, MercadoLibre is first and foremost an e-commerce company. Its marketplace connects millions of buyers and sellers across 18 countries, with Brazil contributing 55% of total commerce revenue, Mexico and Argentina contributing 39%, and the remaining revenue coming from other countries. Unlike traditional retailers, MercadoLibre doesn't hold most of its own inventory. Instead, it provides the digital storefronts, payments, and logistics that make commerce possible in a region where brick-and-mortar retail options can be fragmented.

That business has scaled up impressively. In the second quarter of 2025, MercadoLibre attracted 71 million unique buyers, and more than 550 million items were transacted on its platform -- up 31% from a year earlier. Revenue from the commerce segment rose 45% year over year, fueled by higher transaction volumes and expanding logistics adoption.

The logistics arm, Mercado Envios, is a critical part of the strategy. By taking on shipping itself, MercadoLibre can ensure faster, more reliable deliveries in markets where infrastructure often lags. In 2024, Envios handled 1.8 billion items, with nearly half of shipments in its largest markets arriving within 48 hours. That capability doesn't just make customers happy -- it gives sellers fewer reasons to defect to competitors like Amazon, which has struggled to gain share in the region.

And just like Amazon, MercadoLibre is building a digital advertising business (Mercado Ads) on top of its marketplace. Sellers pay for promoted listings and visibility tools, giving MercadoLibre a high-margin revenue stream that expands alongside its core commerce platform.

On those fronts -- scale, logistics, and advertising -- the Amazon comparison makes perfect sense. But it's only half the story.

Key differences in the business model between Amazon and MercadoLibre

At first glance, MercadoLibre looks a lot like Amazon. Both operate dominant online marketplaces, both run their own logistics networks, and both use advertising to boost profitability. But when you look deeper, the differences are just as significant as the similarities.

1. Fintech as a growth engine

Amazon relies on established banking systems in North America and Europe/

MercadoLibre didn't have that luxury. To make e-commerce work in Latin America -- where large parts of the population are unbanked -- it had to build its own financial rails. That gave rise to Mercado Pago, a payments platform that has evolved into a digital wallet, lender, and asset manager. By the end of 2024, it counted 61 million monthly active users, with a loan portfolio of $6.6 billion and customer assets of $10.6 billion.

Arguably, this integration makes MercadoLibre's digital ecosystem stickier than Amazon's. Payments fuel commerce, commerce fuels credit, and credit drives loyalty. Amazon doesn't have an equivalent.

2. Amazon Web Services and entertainment

On the flip side, Amazon has businesses that MercadoLibre doesn't. The most important is its cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services (AWS), which generates high-margin revenue and funds much of Amazon's growth ambitions. MercadoLibre has no cloud arm, which means its margins depend entirely on the balance between commerce, logistics, and fintech.

Amazon also has an entertainment ecosystem through Prime Video, which helps attract and retain Prime subscribers. MercadoLibre has chosen not to expand into media, focusing instead on becoming the backbone of commerce and financial services in Latin America.

These contrasts highlight why calling MercadoLibre the "Amazon of Latin America" is both accurate and incomplete. Each company has built around the needs of its home markets -- and MercadoLibre's fintech-first model may prove just as relevant in its own context as AWS and Prime have been for Amazon.

What does this mean for investors?

So, is MercadoLibre really the Amazon of Latin America? The easy answer is both yes and no. It resembles Amazon in its marketplace, logistics, and advertising business. It also puts customer delight at its core.

But tactically, it's approaching the game in a different way, which reflects the market dynamics that it's operating in. By marrying e-commerce with fintech, it's positioning itself as the digital backbone of Latin America's economy, not just a marketplace operator.

This ecosystem approach gives MercadoLibre a huge runway -- probably even larger than Amazon's, considering the latter's already massive size. Investors looking for an overseas growth stock should keep a close eye on this Latin American tech company.

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Lawrence Nga has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon and MercadoLibre. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.