The Sezzle Inc (ASX: SZL) share price has fluctuated in morning trade after a strong quarterly update from the buy-now, pay-later (BNPL) group. At the time of writing, the Sezzle share price is up 0.51%.
What is moving the Sezzle share price today?
The Sezzle share price jumped in early trade after reporting strong gains across all key operational metrics for the 3 months ended 31 December 2019.
Sezzle's fourth quarter underlying merchants sales rocketed 52.6% higher on the previous quarter to US$105.1 million. The group's annualised underlying merchant sales now total over US$420 million.
The underlying merchant sales increase was the largest single quarterly increase in the company's history. That brought underlying merchant fees to US$5.8 million, up 61.8% compared to the group's third quarter results.
The group's active customer numbers surged 42% from the September quarter to 914,886 at the period end. Active merchant numbers surged 33.3% from September 2019 to 10,010 in the fourth quarter.
Sezzle Executive Chairman and CEO Charlie Youakim was pleased with the result. Mr. Youakim pointed to the group's historic achievements in its underlying merchants sales and active merchants as big positives.
Importantly, Sezzle's net transaction margin continues to trend upward as economies of scale start to kick in.
Total cash receipts from customers totalled US$92.6 million, up 51.9% from Q3 2019's US$61.0 million.
The Sezzle share price opened strongly today before falling into the red, but has since regained its position in morning trade as investors process the latest figures.
What does 2020 look like for Sezzle?
The December quarter was a good one for Sezzle, but the share price remains under some pressure.
Sezzle remains in dialogue with the US regulatory authorities about its BNPL activities in the country.
Sezzle did manage to get a license to operate in California and make loans under the California Financing Law after the quarter-end. This comes after its shares plummeted following a rejection by the California Department of Business Oversight (DBO).
The group also partnered with e-commerce platform BigCommerce in Q4, which has over 60,000 merchants on its platform. It will be worth watching Sezzle in 2020 as it looks to open up new markets and continue its growth trajectory.
Since listing on the ASX in August 2019, the Sezzle share price has slumped 10.23% lower to $1.98 per share while rival Afterpay Ltd (ASX: APT) is up more than 20% in 2020 alone.
