Mercado Livre ad revenue seen at $636M, up 58%, Itaú BBA says

By Amara Osei

Mercado Livre's advertising business generated an estimated US$636 million in the third quarter, up 58% from the same period of 2025, according to Itaú BBA's calculations from the company's most recent balance sheet.

That is the hardest number in the story, and it comes with a footnote: it is a reconstruction, not a disclosure. Itaú BBA's analysts built the figure by reading the most recent balance sheet, and the underlying report does not set out the method used to isolate advertising revenue.

Takeaway: advertising has stopped being a rounding error on Mercado Livre's income statement and now carries real weight.

How big is advertising inside the marketplace?

Advertising revenue now accounts for 2.8% of Mercado Livre's gross merchandise volume (GMV, the total value of goods sold across the marketplace), against roughly 2.4% a year earlier. In dollar terms, that share climbed while the underlying marketplace expanded, which means ad dollars grew faster than the goods they sit next to.

The source connects the two trends: a rapidly expanding marketplace is drawing more advertisers who want to reach consumers at the moment of purchase. The storefront and the ad slot have become the same inventory.

Takeaway: the ad business is scaling with the marketplace, not cannibalizing it.

What is advertising doing to margins?

Ads are also functioning as a shock absorber. Mercado Livre has been spending on logistics, freight and loyalty programs, and those outlays have squeezed margins on third-party sales. Itaú BBA's note says that, excluding advertising and certain freight-cost effects, the third-party monetization rate — the platform's cut of every third-party sale — "remained practically stable" in the quarter.

That stability deserves scrutiny. The rate looks flat only after stripping out the revenue line growing 58% and discounting specific transport costs. Without ads, the underlying take rate was under pressure.

Takeaway: advertising revenue is currently carrying the take rate that logistics spending would otherwise push lower.

How much of the strength comes from Brazil?

Itaú BBA does not break down advertising performance by country, so any country-level read is inference. What the bank does highlight is the strength of the Brazilian operations, where GMV grew 36% in constant currency in the third quarter while the number of items sold rose 45%.

Put those two figures side by side and the arithmetic gets interesting: units outpaced value by nine points, implying the average selling price fell roughly 6% from the prior-year quarter on the bank's numbers. More goods, cheaper goods, faster — and a bigger audience for sellers to bid for.

Takeaway: Brazil supplies the volume, but volume alone does not explain a 58% jump in ad revenue.

Why did advertising slow in Mexico?

In Mexico the momentum faded. According to the report, advertising expansion "lost force" as sellers reduced their advertising investment in the face of weaker economic activity. Sellers pulled back on media spend, which pulled down the ad growth rate.

No figure accompanies the characterization. The note offers direction, not magnitude, and the same report declines to show how much of the US$636 million came from Mexico, Brazil or elsewhere.

Takeaway: Mexico is the drag on the ad line, and it is a demand-side problem rather than a platform problem.

What the note leaves out

• No company-reported advertising revenue. The US$636 million is an Itaú BBA estimate derived from balance-sheet analysis.
• No country split for advertising, despite a 58% consolidated growth rate and clearly divergent national trends.
• No advertiser counts, ad load (share of page impressions sold as ads), or average ad pricing.
• No advertising operating margin, so nobody can yet say whether the 58% growth is accretive to profit.
• No fiscal-year label for the quarter itself; the report identifies the comparison base only as "the same period of 2025."

What to watch next

The open question is durability. Mercado Livre is converting a 36% Brazilian volume expansion into a 58% ad revenue jump, but Mexico shows the same platform can lose ad momentum when sellers' own finances deteriorate. The next test is whether Brazilian sellers keep raising bids — and whether the advertising line holds its margin contribution once freight spending is added back in.

For a company that built its reputation on selling other people's goods, the more consequential shift may be this: an advertising business growing several times faster than the marketplace it sells into is becoming a company in its own right.