For more than 20 years, MercadoLibre (MELI 1.86%) has been the leading e-commerce platform in Latin America. In this video clip from "The Rank" on Motley Fool Live, recorded on March 21, Fool.com contributors Matt Frankel and Jason Hall discuss its future potential and how it could become one of the world's most valuable companies in 15 years.
Jason Hall: So, for MercadoLibre, two things, right? It has been around for more than two decades and is the dominant e-commerce platform in Latin America. In terms of operating fulfillment centers, owning the goods, selling the goods to people, getting the goods delivered, doing that same fulfillment for other merchants, and built its own payment platform, Pago Mercado, or is it Mercado Pago?
Frankel: Mercado Pago.
Hall: Mercado Pago. That actually does more payment volume now off of MercadoLibre than people use it to buy things on the MercadoLibre e-commerce platform. You've seen it become this dominant e-commerce business and also now this dominant payments business in Latin America and I think the payments business alone gives it such an enormous upside in terms of its ability to grow in an area of the world that is still largely paper money. That is still largely real money exchanging hands versus digital currency.
Marcos Galperin, the CEO founder, is on a mission to transition Latin America to digital currency into a digital economy. I think it's very powerful, very visionary leader who's got a long history of demonstrating his ability to lead the company, and they are still just scratching the surface by the way, in that e-commerce business.
Then you take some of the things that a Shopify (SHOP 2.91%) does really well and MercadoLibre is also doing those things. You think about it has a lending platform for merchants and it's starting to leverage that as a way to grow and a way to fund its own growth by helping its merchants with financial strength, so then they can sell more goods on the MercadoLibre platform.
It's like a virtuous cycle that I think is really feeding itself and maybe we don't give the business enough credit for that two decades of data that they've built up. About merchants and different industries and their ability to be successful and grow profits and shopping history and shopper data and consumer trends and taste and that thing.
I think you take all of those things, put them together, and look at how beaten down this stock is right now. I believe this is one of two or three stocks out there that I believe in 15 years, this could be a trillion-dollar company as the market opportunity in Latin America continues to grow, modernization continues, the middle-class continues to expand than its core markets. This could really be one of the most valuable companies in the world in 15 years.
Frankel: I couldn't agree more and Jason and I have joked, and I said I am going to tell my grandparents or my grandkids that I paid $1,000 dollars a share for MercadoLibre one day. [laughs] I believe in the stock that much. I think the management is doing a fantastic job. I think there's some big markets that they have a presence in that it's just starting to scratch the surface.
I think it's like investing in Amazon (AMZN +1.72%), PayPal (PYPL 1.59%), eBay (EBAY 1.21%), Shopify, maybe even FedEx (FDX 0.70%) earlier in their growth cycles because they have all of those businesses, Square [now called Block (SQ 1.93%)] even. It's a lot all rolled into one stock that I feel has a lot of potential that you can't find anywhere else.
