The purchase vouchers Coupang issued after the personal data leak temporarily lifted user numbers, but the effect did not last.
According to app analytics firm MobileIndex on the 13th, the daily active users (DAU) of the Coupang app reached 15.99 million on the 15th of last month, the day the purchase vouchers were distributed. That was an increase of nearly 400,000 from the day before. From the 16th to the 18th, it stayed in the 16 million range for three straight days. It was the first time since Dec. 7 last year that Coupang's DAU topped 16 million.
Coupang maintained around 16 million DAU even after first announcing the personal data leak on Nov. 20 last year. But after the year-end shopping season ended and controversy over the leak persisted, Coupang's DAU stayed in the 14 million to 15 million range in December last year.
As compensation for the personal data leak, Coupang provided purchase vouchers worth 50,000 won per person. ▲ 5,000 won for Coupang products ▲ 5,000 won for Coupang Eats ▲ 20,000 won for Coupang Travel ▲ 20,000 won for R.LUX.
The vouchers did draw in customers, but the effect did not last long. Coupang's DAU slipped to 15.94 million on the 21st of last month and stood at 15.21 million as of the 30th.
The DAU trend for Coupang Eats was similar. In the week before the vouchers were distributed (Jan. 8–14), the Coupang Eats app averaged about 2.65 million DAU. In the week after the vouchers were distributed (Jan. 15–21), DAU rose about 20% to around 3.18 million. Notably, on the 16th of last month, the day after the vouchers were distributed, the user count topped 3.5 million even though it was a weekday. That figure was usually seen on Christmas or during the year-end holidays.
However, about 10 days after the vouchers were distributed, Coupang Eats' DAU fell back into the 2 million range.
Controversy continues over Coupang's personal data leak. A joint public-private investigation team concluded that a former Chinese developer leaked information on about 33.67 million customers at Coupang between Apr. 14 and Nov. 8 last year. The delivery address list pages, which included shared entrance passwords, were viewed more than 1.48 billion times.
On the 11th, Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kim Seung-won raised the issue during a parliamentary interpellation session, saying, "The suspected leaker selected 3,000 people who ordered adult products from among the personal information of more than 33 million people and made a separate list."
The next day, Coupang issued a statement saying, "The claim that the attacker separately categorized about 3,000 adult product purchasers and blackmailed them is not true," adding, "We will consider every measure to prevent a recurrence. We will do our best to protect customers' personal information."