Coupang Restores Major Services After Overnight Update Error
Coupang said an error during a service upgrade disrupted its shopping, food-delivery, streaming and driver platforms overnight, with normal access restored by about 2:30 a.m.
Coupang restored access to its major consumer and logistics platforms early Friday after an error during a service update caused an overnight disruption across several parts of the company’s digital ecosystem.
The interruption affected the main Coupang shopping service, food-delivery app Coupang Eats and streaming platform Coupang Play. Users attempting to open the services around midnight encountered messages asking them to try again later, temporarily preventing normal access to shopping, meal-ordering and video content.
Access to the applications began returning at around 1 a.m., but some functions remained unstable. Users continued to report problems logging in even after the initial restoration began. Coupang’s logistics platform for delivery drivers also experienced errors, creating difficulties for workers who rely on the system to manage deliveries.
The company’s platforms were operating normally again by around 2:30 a.m. Coupang later told users that the disruption occurred during a service upgrade and said the issue had been fully resolved. The company was still examining the precise cause of the error.
The incident drew attention because of Coupang’s scale and the number of interconnected services affected at the same time. The U.S.-listed company has more than 30 million monthly active users, making even a relatively short interruption capable of affecting a large number of consumers, merchants and delivery workers. Its services span retail purchases, restaurant orders, entertainment and last-mile logistics, so a common technical failure can quickly extend beyond the main shopping application.
The outage also came amid heightened public concern in South Korea about hacking and the handling of personal information. However, the company attributed this disruption to an error during an internal upgrade, and no evidence was presented in the initial report that the incident resulted from a cyberattack. The investigation into the exact technical cause was continuing.
For Coupang, the immediate operational task was completed when service returned before dawn. The remaining issue is whether its review identifies safeguards that can prevent a future update from affecting multiple consumer-facing and logistics systems simultaneously. The episode underscores the dependence of large digital commerce platforms on coordinated infrastructure and the need to maintain continuity during software changes.