Mercado Libre's third-quarter net revenue and financial income rose 45% to $10.75 billion. Operating income fell to $676 million from $724 million a year earlier, cutting the operating margin to 6.3% from 9.8%. Net income rose 6% to $448 million, and shares fell as much as 8% after the report.
On the call, CEO Ariel Szarfsztejn said the company will not, for now, supply its inventory to external platforms for agentic shopping and will build that experience inside Mercado Libre instead. Its own shopping agent is live for a small share of users in its three largest markets. He called early results promising but shared no numbers. CFO Martín de los Santos said the extra revenue from better conversion and click-through in model-powered search more than covered the model costs. He added that AI spending rose about $30 million from the prior quarter and that engagement with Mago, the fintech assistant, improved.
The company's automated campaign advisor now manages advertising for 56,000 sellers, almost four times as many as three months earlier.