The Afterpay (ASX: APT) share price is down 3% after the buy now, pay later company provided a business update.
Afterpay Touch is the owner of the popular “buy now, pay later” app. As of mid 2019, Afterpay had over 5.2 million registered users worldwide, making it one of Australia’s true technology success stories.
Afterpay’s Rocketing Growth
Afterpay has provided an update for the four months to 31 October 2019, telling investors its progress since the FY19 result.
Underlying sales of $2.7 billion for the fourth months was 110% higher than the four month period to October 2018 and 23% higher than the four months to June 2019. Current annualised underlying sales is more than $8.5 billion.
Active customers of 6.1 million at October 2019 was 137% higher than at October 2018 and 32% higher than June 2019. Afterpay disclosed that it added 15,000 new customers per day in October, which is the largest on record.
Active merchants of 39,450 at 31 October 2019 was 96% higher than October 2018’s total and 22% higher than the figure at 30 June 2019.
Afterpay boasted that purchasing frequency, loss rates and customer lifetime value are improving the longer customers are on the platform.
In Australia and New Zealand customers who joined between FY15 to FY17 are now purchase on average 22 times a year. FY18 joiners are purchasing on average 14 times a year and FY19 joiners are purchasing around seven times a year.
Some of the latest businesses to have recently integrated or are in the process of onboarding are eBay (Australia), Marks & Spencer (UK) and David Jones.
The total merchant revenue margin was in line with FY19 levels with improving margins in the US and UK. Meanwhile, the gross loss, net transaction loss and net transaction margin are in line with FY19 despite higher contributions from higher early stage losses in the US and UK.
The company also pointed to its strategic agreement with MasterCard in Australia and New Zealand which will support its medium term growth.
The final part of the update said that there would be a $200 million placement with US tech investor Coatue Management. The share price for the raising will be $28.50 representing a 2.4% discount to the last closing price. The proceeds will be used to fund its global growth and Afterpay will get access to Coatue’s data science expertise.
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