Marketplace MercadoLibre, Latin America's answer to China's Amazon or Alibaba, has already become the region's most valuable listed company, with a market capitalisation of more than US$100 billion. Its share price has risen by around 1,600% in ten years and 26% this year.

Marcos Galperin, chief executive of Latin American e-commerce giant MercadoLibre Inc, the region's most valuable publicly traded company, said the company is just getting started.

It wants to triple the number of users, expand electronic payments, leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and use drones to reach more buyers. The company is increasingly offering loans to consumers and sellers on its platform, which in turn boosts sales.

"We have a lot of room to continue growing in e-commerce," Galperin said in an interview with Reuters at the company's offices in Buenos Aires, adding that he wants to increase users from the current 100 million to 300 million, although he did not specify a time frame.

"On our FinTech platform, Mercado Pago, we are really just scratching the surface of everything we can do. I think Mercado Pago has huge opportunities ahead of it," he added.

MercadoLibre, Latin America's answer to Amazon or China's Alibaba, has already become the region's most valuable listed company, with a market capitalization of more than $100 billion. Its share price has risen by about 1,600% in ten years and 26% this year.

Galperin, however, said he was not “losing much sleep” over the share price, but was instead concentrating on growing the business in the key markets of Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and, increasingly, Chile. He wants to expand organically rather than through acquisitions.

"We don't like buying market share, we like building it," he said.

MercadoLibre doubled its profit in the latest quarter from a year earlier, helping boost its valuation above Brazilian state energy producer Petrobras in August.

ARGENTINE ECONOMY IS 'RECOVERING'

MercadoLibre's headquarters are in an industrial district of Buenos Aires, just blocks from the original garage where Galperin, now a dot-com billionaire and one of the region's most influential businessmen, co-founded the company 25 years ago.

Argentina has gone through repeated economic crises, with rampant inflation (now over 250%), periods of capital controls, sovereign defaults and periodic recessions weighing on the domestic market.

READ ALSO : Marcos Galperin, from Mercado Libre: "One in two online purchases in Chile is in our marketplace"

Galperin, however, said he had renewed his optimism, citing the pro-market policies introduced by new libertarian president Javier Milei, who last week visited the company to celebrate a new $75 million investment in a logistics center.

"We are optimistic about the economy in Argentina in the medium term. That has led us to invest again," the businessman said, citing an increase in credit and a slowdown in monthly inflation that helped boost consumer confidence and sales.

"In the second quarter we saw growth in terms of transactions and items sold. So the economy is recovering," he said, adding that recovery will take time.

Analysts have raised concerns about credit quality as fintech Mercado Pago has issued more loans and uncertainty grows over potential interest rate hikes in Brazil. Non-performing loans in the second quarter declined but stood at a high 18.5%.

Galperin, however, said he was "very pleased" with how the company was managing risk in Brazil and the region, while tapping into millions of unbanked Latin Americans.

"As long as non-performing loans are under control, and they have been, I think we'll be fine."