Afterpay shares hit record high on big sales increase

Afterpay shares hit record high on big sales increase
Buy-now-pay-later company Afterpay Touch (ASX: APT) has revealed it is on track to hit more than $2 billion in sales and has flagged a possible assault on the US market.

Shares in the payment services provider rose nearly 12 per cent on the news to a record high of $7.30 at around 3.45pm (AEDT) on Tuesday.

Afterpay Touch, which launched in Australia just two years ago with Nick Molnar as a co-founder, released its quarterly results to 31 December 2017 which showed its underlying quarterly sales hit $551 million which is up from $367 million the previous quarter.

The company's unaudited figures also showed sales for the first half of the current financial year were $918 million and underlying sales were now tracking at more than $2 billion on an annualised basis.

Afterpay Touch also announced to the ASX that it plans to expand into the US and American-based venture capital firm Matrix Partners will invest $US15 million ($AU18.8 million) in the company. Matrix is a technology-focused venture capital firm and its general partner Dana Stalder has also been invited to join the Afterpay Touch board.

"The market dynamics that provided the opportunity for Afterpay's launch and rapid growth profile in Australia and New Zealand appear just as prevalent in the United States," Afterpay executive chairman Anthony Eisen says.

"These dynamics relate to a number of macro factors including the retail culture and growth of online commerce as well as millennial trends in relation to lifestyle, shopping, finance and payments," he says.

"Our decision to explore expansion opportunities in the US has also been driven by the encouragement and insights provided by some of Afterpay's core retailer relationships."

The company is rapidly growing its customer base, which was more than 1.5 million by the end of second quarter FY18, an increase of 400,000 on the previous three months.

It has also lifted its number of merchants to 11,500, from 8,700 the prior quarter.

Never miss a news update, subscribe here. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.

Business News Australia

Get our daily business news

Sign up to our free email news updates.

Please tick to verify that you are not a robot

 
The MBA that helped Epic Environmental’s startup employee become GM and partner
Partner Content
Environmental engineer Romin Nejad began his career at Epic Environmental at a challeng...
Queensland University of Technology
Advertisement

Related Stories

Black Friday no "be all and end all" for sales as marketing costs bite

Black Friday no "be all and end all" for sales as marketing costs bite

November is often dubbed the new December of retail sales with Blac...

Techtronic slapped with record $15m fine for resale price maintenance

Techtronic slapped with record $15m fine for resale price maintenance

The Australian arm of Hong Kong-based supplier Techtronic has been ...

Why Fergus Creese gives students direction with edtech SaaS scale-up My Careers

Why Fergus Creese gives students direction with edtech SaaS scale-up My Careers

With an interest in business from the age of 14, farm boy Fergus Cr...

7-Eleven Australia acquired for $1.7 billion

7-Eleven Australia acquired for $1.7 billion

Convenience store giant 7-Eleven Australia is set to be sold f...