The Sezzle Inc (ASX: SZL) share price is on course to end the week with a strong gain.
In morning trade, the buy now pay later (BNPL) provider's shares are up over 8% to $9.65.
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Why is the Sezzle share price charging higher?
Investors have been fighting to get hold of the company's shares this morning after it released its first quarter update and announced plans for a US listing.
In respect to the former, Sezzle reported underlying merchant sales (UMS) growth of 214.1% to US$375.1 million for the three months ended 31 March.
Sezzle also revealed income of US$29.2 million for the quarter, up 216% on the prior corresponding period. This was driven by UMS growth and a small increase in margins.
What were the drivers of this result?
Sezzle's strong growth was driven by a 126.6% increase in active customers to 2.6 million and a 27th consecutive month of improvement in its repeat usage metric.
Active consumer repeat usage grew to 90.7% during the quarter. Furthermore, the top 10% of Sezzle's consumers, on average, now transact 49 times per year.
Also supporting its growth was the addition of over 7,300 active merchants during the quarter. This was the largest quarterly increase in the company's history, bringing its total to over 34,000 active merchants.
Sezzle's Executive Chairman and CEO, Charlie Youakim, said: "The strong momentum we ended 2020 with has continued in to 2021. Our 1Q results set new company highs in UMS, Active Consumers, Active Merchants, and Repeat Usage. Our monthly UMS in March 2021 was 30% greater than December 2020. We are also excited about our efforts to attract larger merchant enterprises as evidenced by our recent additions of Market America Global and Lamps Plus."
US listing
In addition to its results, Sezzle has announced its intention to follow the lead of Afterpay Ltd (ASX: APT) by listing in the United States.
No real details were given, but the company stated that "it intends to file a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") for a proposed initial public offering of common stock in the United States. The timing, number of shares of common stock to be offered, use of proceeds, and the price for the proposed initial public offering have not yet been determined. The offering is subject to market and other conditions, including the effectiveness of the registration statement to be filed under the Securities Act of 1933."
