Highlights:
- Australian fintech company, Sezzle said that it expects US$40 million in annualised revenue and cost savings.
- Sezzle also expects to report an incremental US$20 million in annualised revenue and cost savings, with the launch of additional initiatives.
- In the last one year, Sezzle’s share price has sunk by 90.46%.
Buy now, pay later group, Sezzle Inc (ASX:SZL) on Wednesday (21 September 2022), shared a business update for the month ended 31 August 2022. While sharing the business update, the company said that it expects to report annualised revenue and cost savings of US$40 million. The metric was shared on the basis of key initiatives announced by the company to date in 2022.
What were key initiatives announced by Sezzle?
According to the company’s release, Sezzle had announced the renegotiating and offboarding rates with network partners and merchants, and it has been completed and is under continuous monitoring.
In addition to this, the company has reduced its workforce and ceased payment processing in India as part of the initiatives announced earlier.
The initiative to scale back efforts in Brazil and Europe is in process. Also, the company is working on reducing third-party spending.
Reportedly, the company has launched the Sezzle Premium subscription product as a part of its key initiative.
Sezzle informed the market that it is in the process to launch additional initiatives, which are expected to generate an incremental US$20 million in cost savings and annualised revenue. These initiatives include merchant pricing and convenience fee adjustments. The company expects to fully roll out these initiatives by the fourth quarter of 2022.
Key financial metrics of August business update
In August 2022, the company posted underlying merchant sales of US$142.8 million, 1.1% higher than the previous month. The total income dropped to US$9.7 million, 4.8% less than the previous month; however, on a year-over-year basis, it increased by 1.7%.
Sezzle is closing the gap to profitability
According to ASX announcement, total income less transaction-related costs in the quarter to date (through 31 August 2022) improved in comparison to the second quarter of 2022. In addition to this, the company decreased its adjusted operating expense by decreasing advertising, tradeshow, marketing and general & administrative expenses.
With this, the company has lowered the average monthly gap between adjusted operating expenses and total income, less transaction-related costs. It has decreased from US$3.7 million in the second quarter of 2022 to US$1.9 million in the third quarter of 2022.
Sezzle said that it expects to see sequential improvement as it intends to eliminate monthly burn by the end of the year.
Share performance of Sezzle
Shares of Sezzle experienced a fall of 10.48% in the past five trading sessions. On a year-to-date basis, the share price dropped 81.80%, registering a fall of nearly 60.64% in the last six months alone. In the last one month, the share price has declined by 23.97%, and in the last 12 months, the share price has sunk by 90.46% (as of 4:10 PM AEST, 21 September 2022).