*This content was translated by AI.
Kim Beom-seok, chairman of Coupang Inc, the parent company of Coupang, apologized for the personal information leakage that occurred late last year on the 26th (local time).
Chairman Kim said in a "conference call" held on the same day to announce last year's performance, "I would like to apologize once again for the inconvenience caused by this."
Chairman Kim issued a written apology on December 28 last year, but it is the first time that he has expressed his position through direct fostering at a public event.
"Everything Coupang has created has been driven by a single goal, 'to give customers an amazing experience,'" he said. "Customers are the only reason Coupang exists."
"We are doing our best together every day to gain customer trust," he said. "There is nothing more severe in Coupang than not meeting customer expectations." He added, "We are well aware that we have to do better, and we will definitely do that."
Chairman Kim said, "Last quarter (the fourth quarter of last year) will be remembered as a challenging time for Coupang, customers, and business partners alike, but I am very proud of the response our team has shown," adding, "They have dealt with data accidents by focusing only on serving customers while strengthening the system."
Harold Rogers, interim CEO of Coupang Korea, who attended the conference call, explained that the former employee illegally accessed more than 33 million accounts and stored information on about 3,000 accounts in Korea and one in Taiwan. Sharing the results of external forensics, he claimed, "There was no evidence that anyone else had read the information, and it can be confirmed that there were no cases where customer information was abused at all."
In addition, the device used in the incident was recovered, and the approach was blocked and restored in November 2025. He also emphasized, "This accident is a crime committed by all employees against Coupang and customers."
Coupang's performance last year slowed due to the aftermath of the personal information leakage incident. Product commerce sales grew 8% (fixed exchange rate of 12%) in the fourth quarter, but growth slowed in December, Coupang Chief Financial Officer Gerab Anand said.
"We expect growth and profitability to continue to slow down in the coming months," he said.
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*This content was translated by AI.
