South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang announced on Monday a compensation plan worth more than 1.68 trillion won (approximately $1.17 billion) to compensate for previous large-scale personal data breaches. The day before the compensation plan was launched, Coupang founder Kim Beom-seok issued his first public apology since the incident. The incident affected nearly two-thirds of South Korea's population.

Under the plan, Coupang will provide discounts and coupons worth 50,000 won each to 33.7 million users, including Coupang Wow's paying members, old users and former customers who have closed their accounts, the company said in a press release.

The company added that compensation will be paid gradually starting from January 15.

Coupang interim CEO Harold Rogers said in a press release: "Taking this incident as an opportunity, Coupang will wholeheartedly adhere to the principle of customer-centricity, fulfill its responsibilities to the end, and transform into a company that customers can trust."

The compensation of 50,000 won per person includes 5,000 won paid by the Coupang e-commerce platform, 5,000 won paid by the food delivery service "Coupang Eats", 20,000 won paid by Coupang travel products, and 20,000 won paid by R.LUX high-end beauty and fashion products.

Last week, Coupang said it had identified a former employee responsible for the data breach through forensic evidence, recovered equipment used in the hack and obtained a confession from the suspect.

The company claimed that the suspects actually only saved the data of about 3,000 users and later deleted it.

However, the South Korean government dismissed Coupang's findings as "one-sided claims" and noted that a joint public-private investigation into the incident has not yet reached any conclusions.

On November 29 this year, Coupang confirmed that personal information of 33.7 million customer accounts had been compromised, far exceeding the 4,500 accounts initially reported to authorities on November 20.

Given that active users of Coupang's product commerce arm, which includes its delivery service, reached 24.7 million in the third quarter, the scale of the data breach suggests that nearly the entire user base may have been affected.

The company said the leaked data included user names, phone numbers, email addresses and shipping addresses.