São Paulo became the clearest example of this movement. The state concentrates more than 2.3 million square meters occupied by the three platforms, led primarily by Mercado Livre, which alone exceeds 1.5 million square meters. This expansion helped drive new developments along the state’s main logistics corridors. Many projects developed in recent years were designed specifically to meet demand generated by e-commerce operations.

In the Northeast, Pernambuco consolidated itself as one of the regions most positively impacted by the decentralization of digital logistics. The state accounts for more than 300,000 square meters occupied by Mercado Livre, Amazon, and Shopee, strengthening the Recife metropolitan area as a strategic regional distribution hub. Bahia and Ceará followed a similar path, reinforcing Salvador and Fortaleza as relevant hubs for last-mile operations and regional supply chains.

The rapid expansion of these companies also changed the sector’s development dynamics. During the peak of logistics expansion, the market experienced a significant wave of speculative construction — projects launched without pre-signed lease agreements. Today, however, that scenario is beginning to change.

Rising construction costs, driven by material inflation, higher interest rates, and more expensive real estate financing, reduced room for highly speculative projects. Instead of launching empty property based on expectations of future demand, developers have increasingly prioritized more conservative models, with a higher level of pre-leasing before project completion.

In practice, the market has entered a phase of greater operational rationality. Large occupiers, especially e-commerce companies, continue to serve as anchor tenants for new developments, but many current projects are already launched with advanced negotiations or pre-signed contracts, reducing risks for both developers and investors.

Even so, the market’s dependence on digital giants remains evident in vacancy indicators. According to SiiLA simulations, if Mercado Livre, Amazon, and Shopee completely vacated their warehouses, vacancy rates for Class A+ assets would jump from 6.5% to 25.5%. In Class A developments, vacancy would rise from 5.5% to 19.4%. Class B assets would experience a more limited impact, increasing from 5.7% to 8.5%.

Still, industry specialists believe that a significant portion of this supply would likely never have been built without the rise of e-commerce. In other words, the hypothetical increase in vacancy also reflects inventory that was created specifically to serve this new digital demand.

The effects of this expansion go beyond the physical occupation of assets. Data from SiiLA’s Market Analytics platform shows that Mercado Livre, Amazon, and Shopee have also come to represent a significant share of the so-called “industrial properties real estate GDP” — an estimate of the annual rental revenue generated by industrial assets.

In 2020, the three companies together generated approximately R$92 million in annual rental revenue. By 2025, that figure had surpassed R$1 billion, representing cumulative growth of more than 1,049% over the period. During the same interval, the total GDP of Brazil’s logistics real estate market increased from approximately R$2.9 billion to R$7.5 billion.

Without Mercado Livre, Amazon, and Shopee, the market would still have grown, but at a significantly slower pace. Excluding the three players, the logistics real estate GDP would have increased by approximately 123% between 2020 and 2025, below the 152% growth recorded by the overall market.

The numbers reinforce that e-commerce was not merely a major occupier within Brazil’s logistics market. It became one of the primary drivers of professionalization, geographic expansion, and asset appreciation in the country’s industrial properties sector.