Afterpay surges on influx of new US customers

Shares in Afterpay (ASX: APT) rallied today after the company revealed its namesake bi-annual day of sales in the US drove a 35 per cent increase in new active customers to the buy-now pay-later (BNPL) platform.

Afterpay now boasts more than 16 million customers in the US following the day of bargains called Afterpay Day - the first ever to include brick-and-mortar shopping.

Traffic to the platform's brand partners was also strong, with APT sending nearly six million referrals to global merchants from its shop directory during the sale's duration. Of the referrals, 30 per cent went to SMB partners.

"Afterpay Day was the perfect way to support our merchant partners as retailers welcomed their customers back to their physical stores and the economy starts to rebound," Afterpay head of North America Melissa Davis said.

"As evidenced by the numbers, Afterpay Day delievered new customers, drove increased sales and increased basked sizes online and in-store for the more than 3,000 participating merchants in North America."

Shares in the BNPL giant surged today, up 10.07 per cent to $116.15 per share at the time of writing.

The boom comes after APT shares have been on a downward turn during 2021 as part of a global pushback against speculatively valued tech stocks.

At today's price, Afterpay is worth around $33.2 billion - $3 billion more than the company's market capitalisation before the long weekend.

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