The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
The Swedish buy-now, pay-later firm reported a record second quarter on Wednesday, Aug. 25, posting gross merchandise volume (GMV) of $20 billion, up from $12 billion in the same period last year.
Much of this growth was led by rising popularity in the US, where GMV in the first half of 2021 rose 311 percent year-over-year. As of June, 20 million Americans were using Klarna, up from 17 million just two months prior. With more than 250,000 retail partners worldwide, including the likes of Nike and Net-a-Porter, Klarna said a potential initial public offering is on the horizon.
In June, it raised $639 million in a round led by Softbank, valuing the company at $45.6 billion.
Learn more:
ADVERTISEMENT
The Future of ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’
Paying for purchases in instalments has quickly become ubiquitous online. But Klarna, Affirm and the other fintech players that dominate the space have loftier goals.
Successful social media acquisitions require keeping both talent and technology in place. Neither is likely to happen in a deal for the Chinese app, writes Dave Lee.
TikTok’s first time sponsoring the glitzy event comes just as the US effectively deemed the company a national security threat under its current ownership, raising complications for Condé Nast and the gala’s other organisers.
BoF Careers provides essential sector insights for fashion's technology and e-commerce professionals this month, to help you decode fashion’s commercial and creative landscape.
The algorithms TikTok relies on for its operations are deemed core to ByteDance overall operations, which would make a sale of the app with algorithms highly unlikely.