MercadoLibre, Inc. Reports Financial Results For Third Quarter 2010

* Q3'10 net income increases by 90.7% year-over-year to $18.8 million

* Items sold during Q3'10 increase by 30.1% year-over-year to 10.4 million

* Total payment transactions during Q3'10 increase by 120.3% year-over-year to 1.9 million

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Nov. 3, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MercadoLibre, Inc. (Nasdaq:MELI) ( http://www.mercadolibre.com ), Latin America's leading e-commerce technology company, today reported financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2010.

Marcos Galperin, President and Chief Executive Officer of MercadoLibre, Inc., commented, "We are pleased with our strong third quarter results, which once again benefitted from sustained secular trends that continue to drive e-commerce growth in the region. Accordingly, we are confident that our platform of complementary offerings is the right approach. MercadoPago, our payments solution, continues to quickly gain ground as buyers are attracted to our seamless, easy-to-use marketplace, MercadoLibre. Looking ahead, this will be even more relevant as the holidays approach."

Third Quarter 2010 Financial Results Summary

MercadoLibre reported consolidated net revenues for the three months ended September 30, 2010 of $56.0 million, representing 10.6% year-over-year growth in U.S. dollars and 23.2% year-over-year growth in local currencies. Growth rates were negatively impacted since the company began to pre-sell financing receivables, therefore reporting as revenues for the third quarter of 2010 the net amount collected from these pre-sales. Had financing receivables also been pre-sold during the third quarter of 2009, respective year-over-year growth in net revenues would have been 19.9% in U.S. dollars and 33.6% in local currencies.

Items sold on MercadoLibre grew 30.1% to 10.4 million while total Payments transactions through MercadoPago grew 120.3% to 1.9 million when compared to the third quarter of 2009. In local currencies, gross merchandise volume and total payments volume grew 26.5% and 63.0% year-over-year, respectively. In U.S. dollars, gross merchandise volume for the quarter grew 12.3% year-over-year to $888.1 million, while total payment volume grew 66.6% year-over-year to $189.9 million.