Leading online marketplaces in Brazil 2021, by GMV

According to the source, Mercado Livre – known as Mercado Libre in the rest of Latin America – was the online marketplace with the highest gross merchandise value (GMV) in Brazil in 2021: about 68 billion Brazilian reals. Americanas ranked second with 42.2 billion reals in merchandise value that year. Meanwhile, São Paulo-based Magazine Luiza's GMV amounted to nearly 39.8 billion reals.

Brazil’s digital market as a battlefield

Headquartered in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mercado Libre has in Brazil its largest source of revenue. The Portuguese-speaking country accounted for more than half of the holding’s net revenue in 2020. Furthermore, between 2019 and 2020, Mercado Libre’s revenue in the Brazilian market alone increased by over 50 percent, reaching nearly 2.2 billion U.S. dollars. But MeLi – as its employees and competitors call it – is not alone. Since 2019, more than 60 percent of B2W’s GMV came from its marketplace operation.

Amazon, a rival from up North

Although the Seattle-based giant does not specify its results in Brazil, it would be a mistake to overlook its relevance in that country. In July 2020, Amazon.com.br recorded around 70 million visits. Moreover, in 2019, Amazon concentrated half of all online sales of books in Brazil, while four out of five e-books sold in the South American country during that year were also purchased on Jeff Bezos’s flagship.