[비즈한국] Coupang, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, is facing a red light in its stock price as it encounters the dual pressure of slowing performance and governance controversy. Major foreign media and investment research firms have recently issued investment warnings, noting that investor sentiment is cooling rapidly due to a combination of deteriorating profitability forecasts, a massive personal data breach, and escalating legal risks surrounding the company.
Zacks Issues "Sell" Rating… EPS Consensus Downgraded by 110% in One Month
On the 10th (local time), U.S. investment research firm Zacks Equity Research issued a report assigning Coupang a "Sell" rating, the fourth level on its five-tier scale. Zacks’ primary concern is the sharp decline in profitability.
According to the report, Coupang's earnings per share (EPS) forecast for the last month has been downgraded by over 110%, and the EPS forecast for the upcoming quarter is projected at $0.02, approximately 50% lower than the same period last year. The report also notes that the internet commerce sector to which Coupang belongs has fallen into the bottom 30% of all industries, suggesting that the current valuation, which was built on the premise of a growth premium, is under pressure. Foreign media outlets have collectively pointed out that it is difficult for Coupang to maintain a high price-to-earnings ratio (PER) during a phase of slowing growth.
Another factor weighing down Coupang's stock price is the "issue of trust." Major foreign media, including Reuters, have highlighted the recent leak of approximately 33.7 million pieces of customer information. An investigation by the South Korean government concluded that the incident stemmed from vulnerabilities in the internal security system rather than sophisticated external hacking. Investigative authorities faulted the structure that allowed a former engineer to create fake login tokens by exploiting the fact that they knew the flaws in the authentication system and that internal signing keys were not immediately invalidated. This suggests that the issue was not merely a failure to revoke a former employee's access, but a fundamental flaw in key management and authentication design.
Furthermore, the government pointed out that the incident was reported about 53 hours later, well beyond the legal notification deadline of 24 hours, and that the response during the evidence preservation process was inadequate, leading to further investigations. The market is paying close attention to the possibility that this could escalate from a simple accident to a broader issue of trust with regulatory agencies.
U.S. Class-Action Lawsuit Begins… The Issue is Not the "Incident" but the "Responsibility Structure"
The personal data leak has now reached U.S. courts. Some victims have filed a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, seeking punitive damages against Coupang and its management.
Foreign media outlets assessed that the focus of this lawsuit is likely to center on the security investment and control structure, whether management was aware of the risks, and the appropriateness of the company’s post-incident disclosure and response, rather than the fact of the leak itself. Unlike typical data breach lawsuits, analysts suggest this could evolve into a direct challenge to the company's internal control and responsibility systems. This is a variable that could lead to long-term financial burdens and reputational risk, going far beyond short-term costs.
However, Coupang maintains its position that payment and login information were not leaked, that any data remaining in some accounts has since been deleted, and that there has been no confirmation of secondary damage so far. While foreign media have reported this explanation, they emphasized that the core of the issue lies in governance problems related to management, disclosure, and overall response, rather than the specific nature of the leaked data.
Until now, Coupang has emphasized its long-term growth potential based on aggressive logistics investment and market share expansion. Recently, however, the focus of foreign media coverage has shifted from growth narratives to risk factors. The prevailing view among investment analysis outlets is that judicial risks surrounding management, regulatory conflicts with the Korean government, and failures in internal control are combining to increase management uncertainty.
While a recovery in earnings momentum is necessary to justify a high valuation again, major foreign outlets share the view that legal disputes and restoring trust have emerged as more urgent tasks for the time being.
Since earnings forecasts have already been significantly lowered, volatility is likely to continue for a while unless a profitability rebound is confirmed. The fact that the data leak lawsuit could lead to persistent financial burdens, beyond just one-time costs, is also a risk factor. Analysts suggest that in the short term, earnings visibility and the normalization of governance will dictate the stock price's direction, while in the medium-to-long term, logistics efficiency improvements and new business performance will once again be subject to evaluation.