Afterpay customer numbers skyrocket

Buy now, pay later group Afterpay has reported another full-year loss, but the result was tempered by a more than 100 per cent lift in income and a more than doubling in customer numbers.

Afterpay on Thursday reported a bottom-line net loss of $19.8 million for 2019/20, though this was an improvement on the previous year’s loss of $42.9m.

But operating business income soared by 103 per cent to $502.7m.

The number of active customer users more than doubled to 9.9 million in its markets across Australia, New Zealand, the US and UK.

Some 17,300 new customers each day were added to its lending books in the second half of 2019/20, as the coronavirus pandemic took hold and more people began shopping online from home.

“It is clear that Afterpay’s predominantly e-commerce and budgeting focused service has been a net beneficiary of the significant shift to online spending,” Afterpay said.

The average customer order was $153 per transaction.

Some 55,400 merchants are now using the Afterpay service, up 72 per cent from the previous year.

Afterpay sees growth in customers and merchants continuing into 2020/21.

No dividend was declared.

AAP