As Latin America's largest e-commerce market, Brazil—with its 215 million population, 87.4% internet penetration, and young consumer base—has become a blue ocean for global cross-border commerce. In 2024, Brazil's e-commerce market surpassed $35 billion, with fierce competition among platforms like Mercado Libre, Shopee, and Amazon. However, minor currency Brazilian Real(BRL) collection and cross-border payment efficiency remain critical pain points for sellers. Pyvio, a leading payment service provider focused on emerging markets of Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa, empowers sellers on Mercado Libre, Shopee, and Amazon Brazil with local BRL collection, multi-currency clearing, and compliant settlement services, helping cross-border merchants efficiently tap into the high-growth market of Brazil E-commerce.
As the most populous and economically developed country in Latin America, Brazil's population structure and internet development show distinctive characteristics. According to the latest data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the country's total population has reached 215 million, with nearly 90% concentrated in urban areas, forming a highly urbanized social structure. In terms of age distribution, Brazil still maintains relatively young demographic characteristics, with the working-age population (15-64 years old) accounting for nearly 70%, and the median age being 33.5 years old (for reference: China's median age is 38.5 years old, Vietnam's median age is 33.4 years old). This demographic dividend provides important support for economic development.
In terms of internet penetration, Brazil shows strong development momentum. Currently, the national internet user base reaches 187.9 million, with a penetration rate of 87.4%, of which mobile internet users account for more than 90%, and smartphone penetration rate is as high as 76%. In terms of online shopping, Brazil has 91.3 million active online shoppers, accounting for 42.5% of the total population, of which more than 50% are young people under 40 years old, showing high online consumption willingness. In terms of e-commerce penetration, Brazil's current e-commerce penetration rate is only about 10%, far lower than mature markets such as China (46%) and South Korea (37%), but the growth rate exceeds 10%. Brazil e-commerce market is far from saturated and has huge growth potential. The main reasons for Brazil's low e-commerce penetration rate include insufficient logistics infrastructure, limited payment trust, and the dominance of traditional retail.
In 2024, Brazil's economy showed recovery. Although the trade surplus decreased compared to 2023, it still reached US$74.55 billion, with manufacturing exports increasing by 7.4%, partially offsetting the decline in bulk commodity (such as soybeans) exports. Crude oil surpassed soybeans to become Brazil's largest export product, while China remains the largest buyer of its core products such as iron ore (accounting for 70% of exports) and soybeans.
Brazil's main imported products include machinery and equipment, electronic equipment, pharmaceuticals, petroleum, automobiles and parts, wheat, etc. Export products mainly include automobiles and parts, aircraft, steel, soybeans, pharmaceuticals, and mineral products (mainly iron ore).
In 2024, Brazil's import and export situation with major trading partners is as follows (unit: US$ billion):
China: Import value 72.08, export value 116.09, total trade value 188.17
United States: Import value 42.41, export value 40.33, total trade value 82.74
Argentina: Import value 13.61, export value 14.30, total trade value 27.91
(Source: Brazilian Ministry of Finance, China Customs)
In 2024, Brazil's e-commerce market continued steady growth, with annual gross merchandise value (GMV) reaching 186 billion BRL (approximately US$35 billion), an increase of 15%-18% compared to 2023, maintaining its position as the largest e-commerce market in Latin America. Based on GMV data for the second quarter of 2025, the top four e-commerce platforms in Brazil are Mercado Libre, Shopee, Amazon and Temu.
Mercado Libre Brazil is Latin America's leading e-commerce and fintech platform, founded in Argentina in 1999 and now Brazil's largest e-commerce company. The Mercado Libre platform integrates online retail (Mercado Libre), payment system (Mercado Pago) and logistics network (Mercado Envios), forming a mature closed-loop ecosystem. In 2024, Mercado Libre Brazil's GMV exceeded 60 billion BRL (approximately US$11 billion), accounting for about 32% of the market share. Its core competitiveness includes: nationwide 48-hour delivery service (90% of orders), 110 million active user ecosystem, and innovative digital banking services.
In the second quarter of 2025, Mercado Libre maintained its position as Latin America's top e-commerce platform with quarterly GMV of US$15.3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 21%, and total revenue of US$6.8 billion. Among them, Mercado Libre Brazil's GMV in Q2 2025 increased by 29% year-on-year, contributing US$3.47 billion in revenue (accounting for 51% of Mercado Libre's total). The main growth drivers of Mercado Libre Brazil include:
Free shipping policy adjustment: In June, the free shipping threshold was reduced from 79 BRL to 19 BRL, stimulating growth of small and medium order value orders, with June's monthly sales growth reaching 34%.
Logistics optimization: The 48-hour delivery rate increased to 74%, with some areas achieving "same-day delivery", improving user repurchase rate.
Expansion of 1P business: The proportion of self-operated shop goods (such as consumer electronics) GMV increased to 5.3%, enhancing price competitiveness.
As the core e-commerce platform of Southeast Asian technology giant Sea Limited, Shopee Brazil entered Latin America's largest e-commerce market in 2019 as a challenger, facing fierce pressure from local giants such as Mercado Libre. However, with innovative business models and deep localization strategies, this "outsider" has achieved remarkable counterattacks in just six years. As of the second quarter of 2025, Shopee Brazil has developed into an e-commerce giant with 85 million registered buyers and 50 million monthly active users, with a 9.4% traffic share surpassing Amazon and Temu, firmly ranking second in the Brazilian market, second only to industry leader Mercado Libre.
Shopee Brazil achieved outstanding results in the second quarter of 2025 with GMV of US$10 billion, accounting for 20% of the platform's global total GMV, fully demonstrating the strategic position of the Brazilian market in Shopee's global layout. This achievement stems from the platform's deep understanding and precise positioning of the Brazilian market:
Payment innovation: Fully adapted to Brazil's local payment ecosystem, not only supporting the popular national Pix instant payment system, but also providing interest-free installment payment plans of up to 12 months, greatly reducing consumption thresholds. Data shows that Pix payments account for more than 50% of platform transactions.
Social e-commerce revolution: Successfully transplanted Southeast Asia's mature social e-commerce model to the Brazilian market. In 2025, the platform's daily live broadcasts exceeded 2,000 sessions, with 15,000 new user-generated content (UGC) added daily, creating a unique "entertainment + shopping" experience.
Logistics network optimization: Through self-built distribution centers and deep cooperation with local logistics providers, achieved 3-5 day delivery in core cities, while continuously penetrating into second- and third-tier cities, expanding service coverage.
Temu (the cross-border e-commerce platform under Pinduoduo) officially entered the Brazilian market in June 2024 and quickly rose with its "ultra-low price + social fission" model. In 2025, Temu achieved explosive growth in Brazil's e-commerce market, with its low-price strategy (such as "9.9 BRL Big Sales") and fully hosted model lowering the threshold for sellers, driving a 25.8% month-on-month increase in clicks in April. In April 2025, Temu Brazil even briefly surpassed Shopee Brazil with a 9.9% traffic share to become Brazil's second-largest e-commerce platform. However, due to limitations such as logistics time (average delivery time of 12 days vs Mercado Libre's 48 hours), high return rates, tariff barriers, and countermeasures from local platforms, its continued competitiveness is constrained.
Amazon Brazil is one of Amazon's important markets in Latin America. It launched Kindle e-book business in 2012, opened to third-party sellers in 2017, and officially launched a full-category e-commerce platform in 2019. As one of Brazil's fastest-growing e-commerce platforms, Amazon Brazil focuses on middle and high income consumers, focusing on categories such as consumer electronics, books, and daily necessities, forming differentiated competition with local platforms such as Mercado Libre and Shopee.
The booming development of Brazil's e-commerce market has brought huge opportunities to cross-border sellers, but complex tax policies and safe and efficient collection of local currency BRL remain key challenges. Pyvio, as a payment service provider focusing on emerging markets such as Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa, can provide sellers with local BRL collection and efficient fund settlement services, effectively solving problems in cross-border transactions such as difficulty in collecting minor currencies, slow settlement, and exchange rate losses. Whether it is entering local platforms such as Mercado Libre and Shopee, or expanding Amazon Brazil, Pyvio can provide sellers with safe and convenient e-commerce platform collection solutions to help companies seize the market growth of Brazil's e-commerce and achieve global business expansion.