The Personal Information Protection Commission (hereinafter the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC)) imposed a record-high penalty surcharge of 624.7 billion won on Coupang on the 11th, clouding the outlook again for the share price of parent company Coupang Inc., listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Since Nov. 2025, when the large-scale personal information leak first came to light, Coupang's share price has fallen about 40%.
Coupang's share price plunged intraday after the penalty surcharge announcement and then rebounded, but it still remains at about half of its 52-week high. Hit by compensation coupons in the first quarter and a decline in users, Coupang posted a loss, and it is expected to be difficult to avoid an operating loss in the second quarter as the penalty surcharge is reflected.
On the New York Stock Exchange on the 11th (local time), which closed early on the 12th Korea time, Coupang's share price finished at $17.25, up 14.25% from the previous trading day. The share price slid to as low as $15.18 intraday but later recovered its losses and climbed back to the $17 level. Still, it is only about half compared with the 52-week high of $34.08.
Recently, Coupang's share price has remained about 40% lower than around $28, just before the disclosure of the personal information leak at the end of Nov. 2025. Earlier, on Nov. 29, 2025, Coupang disclosed that personal information from about 33.7 million customer accounts had been leaked. On Dec. 1, the first trading day after that, the share price plunged more than 5% and then remained weak for an extended period.
The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC)'s latest sanction is expected to add another burden to the falling share price. The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) held a plenary meeting the previous day and decided to impose a total penalty surcharge of 624.681 billion won on Coupang. The figure includes a 423.6 billion won penalty surcharge related to the personal information leak and a 201.1 billion won penalty surcharge for the unauthorized collection of users' online activity logs. The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) judged that Coupang's personal information management and protection system was inadequate relative to the size of its business. This penalty surcharge is the largest since the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) was launched.
Coupang is already experiencing performance pressure triggered by the personal information leak. In the first quarter of this year, Coupang posted an operating loss of $242 million (about 354.5 billion won). It swung to a loss, marking the largest quarterly loss in about 4 years and 3 months since the fourth quarter of 2021. During the same period, revenue was $8.504 billion (about 12.4597 trillion won), up 8% from a year earlier. Although topline growth continued, the growth rate was in the single digits for the first time since its New York Stock Exchange listing in 2021. The previous lowest quarterly revenue growth rate was 14% in the fourth quarter of 2025.
The number of active customers in product commerce, Coupang's core business, was 23.9 million in the first quarter of this year, up 2% from a year earlier, but down 700,000 from 24.6 million in the previous quarter. The product commerce revenue growth rate also slowed to 4%. In its first-quarter earnings release, Coupang said, "The impact of the data incident was reflected in the active customer metric with a time lag."
In particular, compensation coupons paid to customers affected by the personal information leak pressured both revenue and profit. From Jan. 15 to Apr. 15 this year, Coupang implemented a compensation program that provided purchase vouchers worth about 1.685 trillion won to 33.7 million customers whose personal information was leaked. The compensation coupons were reflected in results as a deduction from revenue in accounting.
The 600 billion won-range penalty surcharge this time is expected to be reflected as an additional burden on second-quarter results. Under accounting principles, penalty surcharges from governments or regulators must be recognized as an expense in the quarter in which the imposition decision is made or disclosed. In that case, the likelihood increases that Coupang will also post a loss in the second quarter, following the first quarter.
Coupang has previously recorded a quarterly loss after recognizing a penalty surcharge in advance. In the second quarter of 2024, Coupang reflected an estimated 163 billion won penalty surcharge from the Korea Fair Trade Commission related to manipulating search rankings for PB (private brand) products in selling, general and administrative expenses, and at the time recorded an operating loss for the first time in eight quarters.
The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) penalty surcharge this time is nearly four times larger than that. It is also similar to Coupang Inc.'s annual operating profit last year of $473 million (about 679 billion won). If that amount is reflected in second-quarter earnings, some project that the deficit could widen more than in the first quarter.
Meanwhile, recent external app usage metrics show a slight recovery in Coupang users. According to the retail analytics service Wiseapp Retail, in May, Coupang's monthly active users (MAU) were 33,687,349, up 0.9% from the previous month. After falling 0.2% month over month in April, it returned to growth in one month.
However, Wiseapp's MAU is an indicator that estimates the number of people who used the Coupang app during a month based on a panel, and it differs from the product commerce active customer count that Coupang compiles and announces each quarter. The product commerce active customer count is the number of customers who actually placed orders in Coupang's product commerce service during the quarter. While it is difficult to compare the two indicators directly, app user counts serve as a supplementary metric to gauge actual purchasing customers or revenue trends, as they show consumer touchpoints and traffic changes.
Coupang has signaled legal action against the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC)'s decision. It has reportedly begun preparations, including hiring a large law firm. On the 11th (local time), Coupang Inc. said in a current report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that "the Korean Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC)'s regulatory judgment and sanctions are subject to judicial review, and we plan to pursue legal remedies through the Seoul Administrative Court."
A Coupang official said, "This penalty surcharge is scheduled to be reflected in second-quarter accounting," and added, "If the size of the penalty surcharge is adjusted through future legal procedures, the accounting treatment may also be adjusted accordingly."