The Afterpay Touch Group Ltd (ASX: APT) share price is currently up 6%, making it the second best performer in the ASX 200 behind Bravura Solutions Ltd (ASX: BVS).
Afterpay Touch is the owner of the popular “buy now, pay later” app. As of early 2019, Afterpay had over 3.5 million registered users worldwide, making it one of Australia’s true technology success stories.
The Afterpay Share Price Is Going Nuts
Not only is the Afterpay share price up 6% today, it’s up 16% in a week, 21% in a month, 126% in 2019 and 358% in a year. That’s mightily impressive, right?
The buy now, pay later sector has been going crazy this year. Zip Co Ltd (ASX: Z1P) shares are up another 9.5% today and Splitit Ltd (ASX: SPT) shares are up a further 6.3%.
It’s very impressive what these businesses are doing every year, every quarter in fact, but sometimes share prices can get far too bubbly compared to the underlying financials.
The most recent thing we’ve learned about Afterpay is its initial strategy for growth in the UK, thanks to an article in the Australian Financial Review.
You may remember that we covered the acquisition of 90% of UK-based ClearPay, a buy now, pay later business, for 1 million Afterpay shares. The UK is the third largest e-commerce market in the world, so it’s a big deal for Afterpay to grow there.
Afterpay executive director David Hancock said that in order to make a speedy entrance into the UK market it will be using the same logo, the same technology that belongs to Clearpay. Indeed, Afterpay will be using the ClearPay name as well.
Afterpay will fund the expansion and consumer debt in the UK initially with money raised in the UK, but after that it will be switched to (likely UK) banks.
Long term shareholders of Afterpay have done tremendously well but I’m very wary of buying shares at the current elevated price. It could easily drop back 20% this year.
For now I would rather think about the two rapid growth shares revealed in the free report below.
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