Mercado Pago user growth in Mexico, Digi Mart USA News: Mercado Pago is accelerating its expansion in Mexico. The financial platform of Mercado Libre surpassed 18 million monthly active users in the country during the third quarter of 2026, a level with which the company claims to be the largest digital bank in the Mexican market.
Mexican growth is part of an increasingly aggressive regional push to make the financial business one of the major engines of the ecosystem. Assets under administration at Mercado Pago rose 67 percent year over year in dollars, while monthly active fintech users grew 29 percent.
The credit portfolio advanced 62 percent.
The combination of commerce, payments, savings and credit is playing a central role in that strategy. So-called “ecosystem” users, those who buy and use the company’s financial services, increased 33 percent year over year, above the growth of other user groups.
Mercado Libre closed the third quarter with net revenues and financial income of US$10.75 billion, 45 percent more than a year earlier, and net income of US$448 million. However, the operating margin stood at 6.3 percent, compared with 9.8 percent a year earlier.
Behind that pressure are investments the company is making to expand its scale. Its fulfillment capacity increased nearly 20 percent compared with the previous quarter, while Mercado Libre absorbed higher costs for free shipping and increased its marketing spending in Brazil.
The strategy is to sacrifice part of immediate profitability to increase purchase frequency and deepen relationships with users. In Brazil, for example, items purchased per user grew 16 percent year over year during the quarter.
The results show the two sides of the strategy: Mercado Libre continues to gain scale at high speed, but the cost of sustaining that pace is beginning to show in its margins.
In Mexico, the competition has a particular dimension. With more than 18 million monthly financial users, Mercado Pago is no longer competing only for online purchases; it is seeking an increasingly larger role in its customers’ everyday financial relationships.
