Kaspi.kz: Why 50% of E-Commerce Now Comes From Turkey-and Why the Stock Still Hasn't Caught Up

Türkiye is now central to Kaspi's growth story

The easiest mistake here is anchoring: many investors still think of Kaspi as "Kazakhstan's winner," which makes the valuation look like a proxy for one emerging-market success story. But the operating mix has already shifted. In Q1, Türkiye represented 50% of e-Commerce GMV, while revenue grew 31% to $2.3 billion and net income was stable at $0.5 billion. The key mismatch is simple: the business is broadening faster than the label attached to it.

Why investors are still hesitant

Bulls see a company becoming a much larger and more diversified platform, with Türkiye now central to e-Commerce growth a much larger, bigger, more diversified businessroughly half of segment GMV. Bears focus on the income statement: net income was essentially flat because higher funding costs and investments offset revenue gains. That split matters. The debate is not whether Kaspi is growing; it is whether that growth is being bought with temporary margin pressure.

Timing is the crux. Türkiye is no longer a future option; it already accounts for half of e-Commerce GMV. And management has not dramatically raised the bar. Full-year targets still call for around 20% GMV growth, 15% TPV growth, and 5% adjusted EBITDA growth. If investors keep pricing Kaspi as a Kazakhstan-only comp, they may miss the rerating that comes once the market treats Türkiye as the bigger part of the story.

Engagement and monetization are improving together

The market can keep fixating on headline GMV and miss the better signal: customers are using the platform more often, and the company is capturing more value from that activity. In Q1, purchases per consumer increased 44% to 15, marketplace take rate increased 90 basis points to 15.8%, and advertising and delivery revenue grew 73%. That combination matters. Rising frequency is the engagement hook; rising take rate suggests monetization is improving; and the growth in advertising and delivery shows the mix is shifting toward value-added services, not just raw transaction volume.

Why purchase frequency matters more than GMV alone

Frequency is more informative than GMV by itself because it points to habit formation. If consumers were merely making larger occasional purchases, GMV could rise without much change in loyalty. But moving from about 10.4 purchases per quarter a year earlier to 15 now suggests the app is becoming a more regular part of customer behavior. That kind of stickiness is what lets a super-app cross-sell.

More shopping activity broadens the audience for ads, makes delivery more valuable, and creates additional touchpoints where payments and credit can be offered at the moment of intent. The flywheel, in other words, is not just "more commerce." It is more commerce, more data, and more monetization points.

Monetization is improving, but not evenly

Management highlighted improving monetization, and the quarter gave supporting evidence: marketplace take rate rose 90 basis points to 15.8%, while advertising and delivery revenue grew 73%. That does not look like a commodity marketplace relying solely on discounts to drive growth. It looks more like a platform getting better at earning more from the same traffic.

This also explains why the old GMV-only lens is too narrow. Earlier growth discussions focused heavily on e-Commerce scale. Now the more useful question is whether that scale is feeding the rest of the ecosystem. Kaspi says e-Commerce deepens customer engagement and creates monetization opportunities across advertising, delivery, payments, and fintech. The Q1 data suggest that is starting to show up beyond gross volume.

Why earnings still look muddled

Investor caution is understandable. The operating flywheel appears to be working, but the cost of running it is visible. Payments TPV grew 14%, and the fintech average net loan portfolio expanded 23%, so demand looks healthy. But higher funding costs and investments offset revenue gains, which helps explain why the profit line still looks messy.

So the debate is less about whether the playbook is working and more about whether investors will pay for quality of growth before the P&L looks completely clean.

What matters most from here

• Take rate: continued gains would suggest monetization is broadening beyond GMV.
• Advertising and delivery revenue: if this stays strong relative to GMV, the mix argument holds.
• Funding costs: if these ease while loan and payment growth remain healthy, earnings could rerate quickly.
• Payments TPV versus fintech portfolio growth: both need to stay solid for the cross-loop thesis to remain credible.

Valuation still looks low relative to the evolving business

At 6.91x trailing P/E and a $14.1 billion market cap, Kaspi still looks cheap for what it has become. That is not because the story is simple. It is because the market may still be applying an old label. The company already has 50% of e-Commerce GMV from Türkiye, kept about 20% GMV growth, 15% TPV growth, and 5% EBITDA growth guidance, and still delivered 31% revenue growth in Q1. Treating the multiple as proof the growth story is spent may miss the bigger point: fear still appears to be dominating the tape.

What may be mispriced

What looks attractive here is not a guaranteed earnings surge. It is a business that is already expanding beyond its original Kazakhstan compounding narrative while still growing at a respectable pace. Investors may be anchoring too much on stable net income and not enough on the fact that value-added services, up 73%, are becoming a larger part of the monetization mix.

If that reading is right, the stock is mispriced on two fronts. First, the market may still be valuing Kaspi largely as a mature domestic platform even as Türkiye now contributing roughly half of segment GMV reshapes the business. Second, the multiple may be too low for a company where engagement is deepening and the ecosystem is earning more from the same traffic, not just moving more volume, supported by higher take rates and strong advertising and delivery growth.

What could support a rerating

The multiple does not need perfection to expand. It needs clearer evidence that scale is becoming more profitable and that Türkiye is no longer viewed only as an investment case. If monetization keeps improving while funding-cost pressure stabilizes, perception can change faster than headline earnings.

What would weaken the case

This thesis weakens if the market's hesitation is justified: if take rates stall, value-added growth fades, or funding costs keep overwhelming operating momentum, then the current discount may be more warranted than this article suggests.