Coupang's Daily Users Drop to 14M Range in Aftermath of Massive Data Breach

Key Takeaways

Coupang Inc.'s daily active user (DAU) count has fallen into the 14 million range, a significant downturn for the e-commerce giant following its disclosure last month of a massive data breach that compromised the personal information of nearly two-thirds of South Korea's population.

According to MobileIndex, a data platform from industry tracker IGAWorks, Coupang's estimated DAU stood at 14.88 million as of last Friday, December 19. This marks the first time the company's daily user count has dropped this low since October 25. In fact, over the last three months, the figure has dipped below the 15 million mark on only a handful of occasions, underscoring the significance of the recent decline.

The drop appears to be a direct consequence of a massive data breach the company confirmed on November 29. Coupang admitted that the personal information of 33.7 million customer accounts had been exposed—a number far exceeding the 4,500 accounts it initially reported to authorities on November 20. Given that Coupang's active Product Commerce user base was 24.7 million in the third quarter, the scale of the breach suggests that nearly its entire user base may have been affected. The company stated that the compromised data included users' names, phone numbers, email addresses, and delivery addresses.

Interestingly, Coupang’s DAU saw a temporary surge immediately after the disclosure. As users rushed to check their accounts and update security settings, the platform's DAU rose into the 17 million range from November 30 to December 3, hitting an all-time high of 17.98 million on December 1. However, this initial spike was short-lived. Since December 10, the figure has slipped back and has shown a gradual downward trend, ultimately falling to the current 14 million range.

In response to the incident, the ruling Democratic Party announced it plans to hold a joint parliamentary hearing later this month to address the data breach.