MercadoLibre (MELI 1.87%) is a favorite of many growth investors around the world, in no small part because of the company's commitment to its long-term plan.
In this Industry Focus: Tech segment, Motley Fool analyst Dylan Lewis and contributor Danny Vena talk about some of the ways the e-commerce specialist has taken a long-term outlook in the last few years, and how those efforts have rewarded the company.
A full transcript follows the video.
This video was recorded on June 23, 2017.
Dylan Lewis: A lot of these tailwinds have manifested in some pretty impressive financial results. Looking at this most recent quarter for them, net revenue, which is basically their take of all these transactions they're facilitating -- am I defining that right?
Danny Vena: That's actually what they keep off of it.
Lewis: Right. That grew just about 75% in U.S. dollars, and higher than that in local currencies. That discrepancy there is something we will touch on in the second half of the show. That's impressive growth. I think one of the things that's surprising with this business is, for as high growth as it is, and you think about these rapidly expanding tech companies, they are traditionally not net income positive. And yet MercadoLibre is.
Vena: MercadoLibre has done some things that you wouldn't expect from a business. One of my favorite examples is, go back to 2009-2010, the world was embroiled in a global recession. I think in early 2009, we didn't even know we were coming out of the recession yet, because those figures are six months behind. While other companies were buckling down, saving their money, not spending money on fixed assets, MercadoLibre did a major overhaul of its platform. And when we came out of the recession, when people finally had money that they were willing to spend, MercadoLibre was ready to leverage that.
Lewis: So they were thinking long-term, it seems. Which is a trait that we love to see as Foolish investors.
Vena: We do.
