Martin de los Santos - Senior Vice President-Finance & Corporate Development Pedro Arnt - Chief Financial Officer Osvaldo Giménez - Executive Vice President - MercadoPago, Payments.

James Friedman - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP Ross Sandler - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Eugene Charles Munster - Piper Jaffray & Co (Broker) Michel Morin - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC Marcelo Santos - JPMorgan CCVM SA Richard Cathcart - HSBC Corretora de Títulos e Valores Mobiliários SA Bo Yang - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker).

Hello everyone, and welcome to the MercadoLibre Earnings Conference Call for the Quarter Ended December 31, 2015. I am Martin de los Santos, Senior Vice President of Finance and Head of Investor Relations for MercadoLibre. Our senior manager presenting today is Pedro Arnt, Chief Financial Officer.

Additionally, Marcos Galperín, Chief Executive Officer; and Osvaldo Gimenez, Executive Vice President of Payments will be available in today's Q&A session. This conference call is also being broadcast over the Internet and is available through the Investor Relations section of our website.

I remind you that management may make forward-looking statements related to such matters as continued growth prospects for the company, industry trends and products and technology initiatives. These statements are based on currently available information and our current assumptions, expectations and projections about future events.

While we believe that our assumptions, expectations and projections are reasonable in view of the currently available information, you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on those forward-looking statements.

And actual results may differ materially from those discussed in this call for a variety of reasons, including those described in the forward-looking statements and Risk Factors sections of our 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission which are available on our Investor Relations website.

Finally, I would like to remind you that during the course of this conference call, we might discuss some non-GAAP measures. A reconciliation of those measures to the nearest comparable GAAP measures can be found in our fourth quarter 2015 earnings press release available on our Investor Relations website. Now, let me turn the call over to Pedro..

our merchant service business which continues to deliver strong results as it's the third consecutive quarter of uninterrupted year-on-year growth at 100% in local currencies, greater number of clients being on-boarded as well as an increase in usage of MercadoPago in existing off-platform merchants explain such high growth rates.

Brazil and Mexico lead the way when it comes to off-platform payments growth as each business continued to accelerate revenue sequentially and grew over 150% year-on-year in local currencies. Financing revenues grew 57% in local currencies, driven for the most part by the adoption of our interest-free listing combo in Mexico and Brazil.

Additionally, adoption of our interest-free listing type in Argentina launched late in the fourth quarter has shown good advances as it penetrates our platform growing at a fast rate, albeit from a very low base since full implementation remains fairly recent.

And last, Shipping and Advertising revenues continued to consolidate as one of the fastest growing segments to our revenues as the pace of adoption of the aforementioned solutions continued to gain traction and steadily penetrate our geographies.

On the classifieds front, revenue contribution to our top-line continues to grow at a steady pace as we keep improving the monetization of our most profitable segment, professional sellers.

The combined efforts of the factors mentioned above resulted in solid total revenue growth on a consolidated basis accelerating sequentially to 69% year-on-year in local currency. Excluding Venezuela, that revenue growth came in at an equally robust 51%. Total top-line growth in local currencies in our largest markets broke down as follows.

Brazil 42%, Argentina 80%, Mexico 29% and 272% for Venezuela. Consolidated revenue growth in U.S. dollars was a healthy 12% and excluding Venezuela was 14%. Moving on, let's now take a look at our bottom-line results and margin structures as we do every quarter. Gross profit grew 3% year-over-year during the fourth quarter to $117.6 million.

Gross profit margin was 65.1% of revenues versus 70.5% in the fourth quarter of 2014 and 66.3% in the third quarter of 2015.

As MercadoPago and MercadoEnvios continue to grow payment volume and gain share of MELI revenues, the incremental impact of payment processing fees and sales taxes associated with these businesses explained, for the most part, the margin contraction.

Of the 541 basis points of contraction, 172 are attributable to currency fluctuations and the rest can primarily be attributed to the just mentioned mix shift. Operating expenses grew 23% year-on-year reaching $83.9 million and representing 46.4% of revenues versus 42.4% in the same quarter last year and 39.5% during the third quarter.

Of these 398 basis points of margin decline, an estimated 358 basis points can be attributed to currency devaluations. I will now break down OpEx growth for you. Sales and marketing grew 26% year-on-year to $42.2 million or 23.3% of revenues versus 20.7% for the same period last year and 18.5% last quarter.

The 263 basis points of margin contraction were mainly driven by costs related to increases in salaries and wages to our Buyer Protection Program and fraud-prevention related charges since these last two are essential trust retention mechanisms we offer buyers and sellers on our platform.

These effects were somewhat offset by scale improvements in bad debt expenses due to the continued increase of MercadoPago penetration. Product development expenses grew 40% to $22.5 million, representing 12.4% of revenue during the fourth quarter versus 9.9% in the same period last year and 10.1% in the third quarter of 2015.

Growth in costs reflect increases in compensation from salaries and wages resulting from continuing investments in our product development talent pool which grew 33% versus last year in head count and incremental costs from software maintenance and licenses.

General and administrative expenses increased 1% year-over-year to $19.2 million, representing 10.6% of revenues versus 11.8% a year ago and 10.9% during the third quarter of 2015. The 117 basis points of scale was driven mainly by a reduction in long-term retention plan accruals, which were partially offset by higher fees for outside services.

As a result of these COGS, operational expenses and currency devaluations, operating income for the quarter was $33.7 million or 18.6% of revenues versus 28% in the fourth quarter of 2014 and 26.8% last quarter.

Below operating income, we saw $4.2 million in financial expenses, mostly corresponding to interest accrual on our convertible bond issued in 2014. Further down, interest income was $5.8 million dollars, up 33% year-on-year. Most importantly, we saw a $17.8 million gain in our forex line explained by the appreciation of U.S.

dollar balances held by our subsidiaries, mainly due to currency devaluation in Argentina in December of 2015. Consequently, net income before taxes totaled $53 million, up 6% year-over-year and representing 29.3% of revenues versus 31% during the fourth quarter of last year. Income tax expense was $14.1 million during the fourth quarter.

The blended tax rate for the period was 26.5%, down from 31.6% in the fourth quarter of 2014, explained by the reinstated tax benefit from the software development law we are beneficiaries of in Argentina. Net income after all this came in at $39 million, or 21.6% of revenues versus 21.2% in the fourth quarter of 2014.

This resulted in a basic net income per common share of $0.88 versus $0.76 in the same period last year. Purchases of property, equipment, intangible assets and advances for property and equipment net of financial liabilities during the quarter totaled $25.9 million.

For the period ended December 2015, free cash flow defined as cash from operating activities less payments for the acquisition of property, equipment, intangible assets, advances for property and equipment, net of financial liabilities was $84.2 million versus $39.4 million in the same period last year.

Cash, short-term investments and long-term investments at the end of the quarter totaled $556.6 million. Wrapping up, we declared our quarterly dividend of $6.6 million, or $0.15 per share payable on April 15, 2016 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on March 31, 2016.

This concludes our financial review as we exit the last quarter of 2015, a record year for us in terms of the pace of execution and adoption of our enhanced Marketplace vision.

Our focus will be centered on continuing to execute and invest behind our strategic initiatives in order to scale our business for the long-term while delivering solid top line growth, creating value for our users, and preserving a balance of profitability and investment in the business.

As we delve into our 2016 plan and beyond, we remain constant in our belief that product-driven innovation and a customer-centric culture across our BUs will be the cornerstones of our quest to offer users a consistently improving user experience that meets their needs when it comes to trading online.

We look forward as always to keep you updated over the next few quarters on our progress. And with that, we will take your questions. Thank you..

Our first question is from James Friedman of Susquehanna. Your line is open..

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Congratulations on the results. I wanted to ask about some of the trends that you might be seeing on the payments side, especially off-platform in light of some of your comments.

So if you could talk to what types of merchants you're engaging with Pago off-platform, what some of the pricing trends may be and what your distribution strategy is getting payments outside of Libre?.

Hi. This is Osvaldo. What we've seen is a lot of traction in all of the markets we're in. We have seen in Brazil mostly, a transition from the typical MercadoPago checkout to our open platform solution where our merchants connect server to server and that is where we have seen most of the traction in that country.

In terms of types of merchant, in many cases, we have seen cross-border merchants who are selling goods from China into Brazil, and we are processing the payments for them.

Then, both in Argentina and to some degree in Mexico, which are our largest markets together with Brazil, we have seen broader diversification in terms of industries of the merchants. A few years back there was some concentration around the coupon industry.

Today it's pretty much diversified between many, many industries, such as travel, e-commerce, and then also services.

Does that answer the question?.

Yes. That's helpful. And then if you could comment as to how you're distributing payments.

At this stage, are you using merchant acquirers like Cielo to distribute Pago off-platform? Or are you doing it with a direct sales force? How do you introduce your payment solution into other merchants?.

Yes. We have our own sales force which reaches to larger merchants and then we use marketing to reach the long tail who is self-service..

Great. Thank you for your commentary..

Thank you. Our next question is from Ross Sandler of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open..

Yeah hi. Thanks guys. Pedro, I just had one on mobile and then one on Argentina. So I think at the last Analyst Day, it's been a while now but you said I think, mobile was about 11% of GMV if we strip out Venezuela.

So just curious where is that figure today ex-Venezuela? And do you think mobile is the bigger driver of the strong growth that you're seeing right now, or is it still the roll-out of the enhanced Marketplace strategy in the various countries just broadly? And then the second one on Argentina.

So unit growth has been very strong over the past two quarters or three quarters, beginning of the year 2015 it was low 30%s and now we're closer to 60%.

So is this move in Argentina just further penetration of Envios and Pago? Or is there something else driving the acceleration? And with the interest-free roll-out in November, is Argentina growing even faster today than exiting the year? That's it. Thank you..

Great, Ross. So in terms of mobile, mobile has consistently grown in terms of percentage of our business, roughly a third of our volume is already coming from mobile, so significantly higher than at the Analyst Day and growing consistently quarter-on-quarter. When we look at new user sign-ons, that number is even higher, and so is traffic.

So definitely mobile is a strong driver of growth and something that we're focusing on and executing well on. I would say that it's a part of explaining the growth across the board, but definitely the full ecosystem is very significant in terms of better shipment, better payments, better customer service, all the initiatives that we're working on.

So I wouldn't attribute the growth to any of these in isolated fashion, and that's a very similar explanation for Argentina. Argentina is a country along with Brazil where the ecosystem has rolled-out quite well, and that is a significant part of explaining why it's performed so well..

Thank you. Our next question is from Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray. Your line is open..

Hey, good afternoon and I'll add my congratulations and a follow-up on Pago, and then one on Envios.

But in terms of Pago, can you talk about long-term vision for the product? Do you see this as being more desktop and mobile-centric? Or do you – could you see this eventually evolving into something where you're doing in-store and peer-to-peer and you kind of have a longer term roadmap for Pago? And my second question is on Envios.

You talked about kind of outsourcing this or allowing third parties to access this.

Can you talk a little bit about how you see that business and how you make money in it? And is this going to be I guess more important to the story in the future?.

Hi, Gene. This is Osvaldo again. So in terms of strategy for Pago, we started focusing on initially on MercadoLibre transactions, then we're growing very strongly off-platform, but mostly web-based.

And now we are expanding to our two big segments, one is what we call mobile, which means both mPOS, which we started selling in Brazil last year, and peer-to-peer payment. We launched a wallet about a year ago in all countries, and it's generating some significant traction. And then the other segment we're expanding too is credit.

And here we are just starting, but we are in the process of creating a Marketplace to help merchants get better financing and eventually the same with consumers..

And let me – if I can interrupt here, is the in-store part would that be NFC enabled, or would it have to be email and password?.

Today, the mPOS is focused on – it's more similar to Square. We do have researches and we have a beta pilot for NFC functionality, but we have – it has not yet taken off in Latin America..

Okay..

Gene, on the Envios piece, I would say most of the growth and most of the focus for the next few quarters is on platform. We are seeing the enormous positive impact of the shipping and logistics ecosystem in Brazil, and we want to continue to grow that in Brazil and roll-out to the other markets.

Having said that, some merchants that are using Envios for their MELI sales also show interest in being able to use the platform for some of their off-platform sales, and though on a selective basis we can open it up for them.

But again, most of the focus and a lot of the growth is going to be primarily on MercadoLibre growth of Envios in the different countries..

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you..

Thank you. Our next question is from Michel Morin of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open..

Thank you. Pedro, so one question on Brazil, and in particular, the selling of your receivables to banks.

I'm wondering if given the current macro environment, you're running into more difficulties selling receivables to the banks given the bank results themselves have been pretty weak recently? And then secondly, in Argentina, I know you typically won't give forward guidance, but given that we've had a more secured evaluation and there's been some changes in the economy, has that changed anything as you start the year, in the first couple of months of the year, have you seen any change in trend there? And if I can throw a third quick one is, just wondering what FX rate you used for Venezuela.

Thank you..

So in terms of the market to sell receivables in Brazil, as we've always said, it's always been an extremely liquid market. I think in the many years we've operated MercadoPago we always anecdotally say that the only 24-hour window where we had any difficulty in moving receivables was the day Lehman Brothers went under. So the answer is no.

No change in that and it continues to be a very liquid market and we don't anticipate restrictions to selling those. Obviously, price fluctuates but unless systemic risk exists, we don't see that as a challenge. Argentina, I think it's a matter of putting it into perspective.

So our Argentine business has been performing incredibly well for many quarters. And even if it, for whatever reason decelerates somewhat, it's still performing incredibly well growing extremely well and a business that we're very pleased with.

So we can give you the numbers when we report the quarter, but in general, I'd say that there's no significant material shift in trends and that's all that we can comment at right now..

FX...

And the question on FX, we continue to use the same SIMADI rate that we did in the prior quarters. The average for the quarter was right around 200 bolívars to the dollar..

Great. Thank you..

Thank you. Our next question is from Marcelo Santos from JPMorgan. Your line is open..

Hi. Good evening. Thanks for taking the question. My first question is about Brazil and the new ICMS law. Just wanted get a glimpse, how your sellers are being affected. It's all over the press that the small – mid, small sellers are suffering. So I just want to get an update there. And the second question was about this increased deployment of capital.

Just wanted to understand, so it's likely that we're going to see 2016 with lower margins and higher growth, so just wanted to get more color on how we see that in our numbers. Thank you.

Hello?.

Please stand by, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand by..

Ladies and gentlemen, our speakers have rejoined us..

Great. So operator or Marcelo, I don't know if you're still on the line. I don't know how far I got on the answer before both the main line and the backup line dropped. So if Marcelo is still on the line and you can give me an indication of which questions were left unanswered, we can pick up from there..

Hello?.

Yeah. Hello..

Your line is open, Mr. Santos..

It's Marcelo here. I don't know if you can hear me. I couldn't hear anything about the answer. Sorry..

Great.

Marcelo, did you get the answer on [ICMS] or that one didn't come through either?.

No..

No, so let me start. Right, very quickly; no impact on our business so far. Obviously, it's still very early and we'll monitor it. The latest Supreme Court injunction exempting from the ruling the small businesses that report under Simples we think is a very positive occurrence and should help mitigate any eventual impact.

And also, we will be working alongside our merchants to help them meet any of the new requirements that occur. Our ERP solution KPL is already compliant with the new ICMS laws. So we feel that merchants on MercadoLibre will be in relatively good shape to face whatever happens with the fiscal situation and we haven't seen any impact yet.

And then you asked about the capital allocation for the quarter – for the year that we're indicating. I think what we're trying to say is that we've seen the positive impact of building out our full ecosystem of shipments, of payments, of credit.

We're convinced that it offers a significantly better user experience and that that's the future for our marketplace. It's the enhanced marketplace vision that we've been outlining.

And so we will continue to invest in those initiatives in the near future to grow the penetration of payments, to grow the penetration of credit, and to grow the penetration of Shipping and logistics. Obviously that changes our margin profile.

You can see it in the trend line, but we continue to think that that's the right direction to take the business in..

Thank you. Our next question is from Richard Cathcart of HSBC. Your line is open, sir..

Hi, guys. Thanks very much for taking the question, just a couple of quick ones.

If you could just talk for a little bit about what you're seeing from the strategy that you announced at the end of last quarter of discontinuing the listing fees in Brazil and moving towards the free listing; the classic and the premium, if you could just talk through the results that you're seeing from that? And then just secondly on Argentina versus Brazil, I mean this year you've had constant currency growth of around 85% in Argentina, 50% in Brazil.

The difference there, I mean is that really due to inflation, or is there something else that we should be seeing that's perhaps performing better or being more well-received in Argentina than in Brazil? Thanks..

So in terms of the transition away from placement fees to a fully commission-based or final-value fee listing model in Brazil, we are very pleased with results. If you look at Brazilian take rates, or monetization levels, they've remained relatively flat despite the transition.

So we've been able to not negatively affect monetization, and yet we offer a listing format that we think is much more attractive for sellers and we continue to see very strong results in terms of live listing count and the number of SKUs in inventory that we've brought on to the platform.

So that listing format is one that we will be rolling out to other markets, and we also see significant improvement in seller satisfaction and buyer satisfaction. So, definitely, that's the direction we want to take our pricing. Back-end commissions, we share the risk with our sellers. If they list then don't sell, they don't pay anything.

If they sell, they pay us. It'll help us maximize inventory which is our goal. And it's also allowed us to grow new sellers at an interesting pace. That metric has picked up again. So it's going to be rolled out to the other geographies, and hopefully, we can be equally successful in doing so without negatively affecting monetization.

Argentina, obviously a part of the volume growth can be explained by inflation, but even if you look at organic growth adjusted by inflation, Argentina is still growing at an extremely strong clip, even faster than Brazil, which is also growing very healthily, especially given the macro in Brazil.

So I would say inflation explains a part of it, but it certainly doesn't explain all of it. Unit growth in Argentina, which is units sold, is slightly below 60% for the quarter. So that gives you a good sense of how healthy the business is in Argentina even if you adjust for inflation..

Okay. Thanks very much. And just a quick follow-up.

Just wondering if there's anything that you can see from the business or from your sellers that makes you think the weak macro environment in Brazil is maybe beginning or will begin to have a negative impact, because your sales growth looks remarkably resilient whereas a lot of the other online operators, albeit with a different model, have seen a big deceleration in sales growth..

So again I think as we report the remainder of the year, we'll be able to address that issue fully. What I would say is what we always say, marketplaces are very resilient. Sometimes in tough macro consumers will look more for the value proposition of a marketplace with is depth of selection, very competitive pricing.

They will also look to supplement income. So they'll come to the Marketplace to sell. And so again we've been very consistent on saying that macro, I think for a Marketplace business, sometimes can be weathered more easily than if it's a bricks-and-mortar business or a first-party business.

And we are fairly comfortable that we are gaining share in Brazil. So could the macro effect grow somewhat? Yes, but on a relative basis, I think the Marketplace should stand to perform very well..

Okay. Thanks very much..

Thank you. Our next question is from Stephen Ju of Credit Suisse. Your line is open..

This is Bo on for Stephen. Congrats on the quarter, guys. Just a couple of questions, if I may. Pedro, is there anything in the employee contract in Argentina that guarantees certain salary levels or peg salaries to the U.S.

dollar so that in the event, if relative devaluation of the peso, you may not see as much leverage? And another question on mobile, are you able to call out at this point a relative conversion rate, or transaction velocity gap between mobile and desktop right now? And what that might have been a year ago? Secondarily, are the new users registering recently primarily mobile first? Or are you still receiving new users on the desktop? Thank you..

Okay. So let me start with the compensation issue. There is no guarantee that pegs compensation to dollar levels. The only dollar-denominated compensation item which affects key employees and certain senior managers is the long-term retention plan, which is a U.S.

dollar denominated amount but the vast majority of employees in Argentina have peso compensation with no sort of anchor to the U.S. dollar. So we should see wage cost benefits from the Argentine devaluation. In terms of mobile, as is the case with most e-commerce companies, yes mobile conversions are lower than desktop.

We don't disclose what the relative gap is. Obviously all our efforts and focus is on continuing to improving our mobile efforts to close that gap, but it's not a number that we disclose.

And could you repeat the final question pertaining to new users, please?.

Are the new users that you're seeing primarily from mobile, are you still receiving new users on the desktop?.

So new user registration is already primarily mobile, but obviously we continue to have desktop registrations as well. More than half are from mobile devices already..

Okay. Cool. Thank you..

Thank you. At this time, I see no other questions in queue. I'd like to turn it back to management for any closing remarks..

So thank you everyone. A great start to the year. A lot of energy within the company, and we look forward to get back to you and report on our advances next quarter..

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone have a great day..