Klarna ups the ante as it reaches 20 million customers in the US
Klarna, the payments, and shopping platform has touched 20 million users in the US alone and now has over 4 million active users every month which makes it a clear leader in the segment far ahead of the competition.
But this success has not been easy and has seen the company pump in a lot of money for marketing, sales, acquisitions and partnerships which led to an overall loss in 2019 but all these efforts and spending seem to be bearing fruit in the recent months as its userbase grows very strongly and quickly not only in the US but also in the other countries where it has a presence, especially in Europe. The launch of a buy-now-pay-later product recently has also helped the platform to attract the new generation of users who can now make costly purchases and repay them at no cost within a few months in the form of monthly instalments.
It is learnt that the partnership with Macy’s was the turning point in business for Klarna as far as the US market is concerned and since this partnership launched it has been able to grow very strongly with good user adoption of its platform. Also, recently, Klarna announced a partnership with Westpay AB, another payments platform and this partnership would see the various product offerings of Klarnga being incorporated into the Westpay platform in the coming months. This is another example of how aggressively Klarna has been growing and expanding in recent times.
“We all know the impact Klarna has had and continue to have on the payment landscape. The simplicity they brought to online payments has been a game-changer for the end-consumer. Through our cooperation, we will bring the same simplicity to in-store environments. I am looking forward to working together with Klarna, advancing the next generation of in-store payments”, said Sten Karlsson, CEO at Westpay.
Klarna has been raising massive funds from various investors in a series of funding rounds over the last few months and at the same time, has been spending the money on acquiring other businesses and partners as well. This has helped it to grow and be valued at over $40 billion at this time which makes it the second biggest privately owned company. But it has also been recently reported that it would be going public towards the beginning of the next year and discussions with various investment banks have already started over these plans.
