Coupang, ‘the Amazon of South Korea,’ IPOs today: What to know as CPNG stock debuts on the NYSE

If you regret not getting in on Amazon’s IPO in the late ’90s, today may be your second chance. In a way, anyway. That’s because Coupang, the “Amazon of South Korea,” is having its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange.

Coupang’s IPO is expected to be the largest yet of 2021. Coupang’s shares, which will trade under the ticker symbol CPNG on the NYSE, will be priced at $35 apiece. At that price, Coupang has a market valuation of $60 billion. To put that in perspective, in 2018 Coupang’s valuation was only around $9 billion.

As CNBC reports, Coupang was the No. 1 South Korean e-commerce site, with a 19.2% market share in the country, in 2020. And thanks to the pandemic, which saw people flock to e-commerce sites as they avoided brick-and-mortar retailers, Coupang’s net sales surged 91% YOY to $11 billion last year. That’s an incredible volume for a company that is just 11 years old. Coupang was founded in 2010.

You never know if a stock will pop or drop on its IPO day, but if CPNG skyrockets, one of the largest beneficiaries will be SoftBank’s Vision Fund, the Japanese investment fund run by billionaire Masayoshi Son. Vision Fund holds a 35.1% share in Coupang.