The Laybuy Holdings Ltd (ASX: LBY) share price will be on watch this morning after announcing growth news.
Laybuy is a New Zealand based buy now, pay later business which is available in the UK, New Zealand and Australia. Customers can pay for a purchase back over six weekly payments without paying interest.
Growth milestones
After strong trading in November, Laybuy announced other growth news today.
Management revealed that ‘tap and pay’ has been successfully released in New Zealand after the successful launch in Australia. It’s the first buy now, pay later company to offer this in New Zealand thanks to the collaboration with Mastercard. Laybuy is already seeing strong interest from consumers and is planning a UK rollout early in 2021 – the rollout hasn’t happened already because of UK retail COVID-19 restrictions.
The company also said that it is launching the beta testing of its offering in the US through its Laybuy Global product with selected retailers with a full rollout expected across the US in April 2021. The company said it’s well placed to win merchants. It also said it has the potential to access the fans of major (soccer) Premier League sporting clubs like Arsenal and Manchester City.
Laybuy also announced a collaboration with Prezzee to enable ‘pay in 6’ for gift cards at a large range of stores across Australia and the UK. Some examples include Wesfarmers Ltd‘s (ASX: WES) Bunnings and Catch, Ikea, Kogan.com Ltd (ASX: KGN) and Webjet Limited (ASX: WEB).
Management comments
Laybuy Managing Director Gary Rohloff is pleased with the progress with the business and also said: “I also look forward to announcing further product feature enhancements in the first quarter of the 2021 calendar year. December trading has continued the strong momentum from November as customers use Laybuy as a budgeting tool in the lead up to Christmas, and I will be pleased to announce more record breaking performance as we continue into 2021.”
Summary thoughts
Laybuy is doing the right thing to grow the business. Extending the company’s reach seems to be the best thing to do as a buy now, pay later operator. I don’t know how large Laybuy can become or whether it can beat others in the sector like Afterpay Ltd (ASX: APT) or Zip Co Ltd (ASX: Z1P).
There are ASX growth shares in the payments industry that are already profitable like Pushpay Holdings Ltd (ASX: PPH) or EML Payments Ltd (ASX: EML) that I’d prefer to buy.
