“Buy-now, pay-later” firm Klarna aims to return to profit by summer 2023.
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Klarna said it posted a profit in the first half of the year, swinging into the black from a loss last year as the buy now, pay later pioneer edges closer toward its hotly anticipated stock market debut.
In results published Tuesday, Klarna said that it made an adjusted operating profit of 673 million Swedish krona ($66.1 million) in the six months through June 2024, up from a loss of 456 million krona in the same period a year ago. Revenue, meanwhile, grew 27% year-on-year to 13.3 billion krona.
On a net income basis, Klarna reported a 333 million Swedish krona loss. However, Klarna cites adjusted operating income as its primary metric for profitability as it better reflects “underlying business activity.”
Klarna is one of the biggest players in the so-called buy now, pay later sector. Alongside peers PayPal, Block‘s Afterpay, and Affirm, these companies give consumers the option to pay for purchases via interest-free monthly installments, with merchants covering the cost of service via transaction fees.
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Klarna’s CEO and co-founder, said the company saw strong revenue growth in the U.S. in particular, where sales jumped 38% thanks to a ramp-up in merchant onboarding.
“Klarna’s massive global network continues to expand rapidly, with millions of new consumers joining and 68k new merchant partners,” Siemiatkowski said in a statement Tuesday.
Using AI to cut costs
The company achieved its adjusted operating profit “by focusing on sustainable, profitable growth and leveraging AI to lower costs,” he added.
Klarna has been one of the forerunners in the corporate world when it comes to touting the benefits of using AI to increase productivity and cut operating costs.
On Tuesday, the company said that its average revenue per employee over the previous twelve months increased 73% year-over-year, to 7 million Swedish krona.
It comes as Klarna tries to pitch itself as a primary banking provider for clients as it approaches a much-anticipated initial public offering.
The move highlighted how Klarna is looking to diversify beyond its core buy now, pay later product, for which it is primarily known.
Klarna has yet to set a fixed timeline for the stock market listing, which is widely expected to be held in the U.S.
However, in an interview with CNBC’s “Closing Bell” in February, Siemiatkowski said an IPO this year was “not impossible.”
“We still have a few steps and work ahead of ourselves,” he said. “But we’re keen on becoming a public company.”
Separately, Klarna earlier this year offloaded its proprietary checkout technology business, which allows merchants to offer online payments, to a consortium of investors led by Kamjar Hajabdolahi, CEO and founding partner of Swedish venture capital firm BLQ Invest.
The move, which Klarna called a “strategic” step, effectively removed competition for rival online checkout services including Stripe, Adyen, Block, and Checkout.com.
An Amazon worker moves boxes on Amazon Prime Day in the East Village of New York City, July 11, 2023.
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Amazon is extending its Prime Day discount bonanza, announcing that the annual sale will run four days this year.
The 96-hour event will start at 12:01 a.m. PT on July 8, and continue through July 11, Amazon said in a release.
For the first time, the company will roll out themed “deal drops” that change daily and are available “while supplies last.” Amazon has in recent years toyed with adding more limited-run and invite-only deals during Prime Day events to create a feeling of urgency or scarcity.
Amazon launched Prime Day in 2015 as a way to secure new members for its $139-a-year loyalty program, and to promote its own products and services while providing a sales boost in the middle of the year. In 2019, the company made Prime Day a 48-hour event, and it’s since added a second Prime Day-like event in the fall.
Prime Day is also a significant revenue driver for other retailers, which often host competing discount events.
Illustration of the SK Hynix company logo seen displayed on a smartphone screen.
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Shares in South Korea’s SK Hynix extended gains to hit a more than 2-decade high on Tuesday, following reports over the weekend that SK Group plans to build the country’s largest AI data center.
SK Hynix shares, which have surged almost 50% so far this year on the back of an AI boom, were up nearly 3%, following gains on Monday.
The company’s parent, SK Group, plans to build the AI data center in partnership with Amazon Web Services in Ulsan, according to domestic media. SK Telecom and SK Broadband are reportedly leading the initiative, with support from other affiliates, including SK Hynix.
SK Hynix is a leading supplier of dynamic random access memory or DRAM — a type of semiconductor memory found in PCs, workstations and servers that is used to store data and program code.
The company’s DRAM rival, Samsung, was also trading up 4% on Tuesday. However, it’s growth has fallen behind that of SK Hynix.
On Friday, Samsung Electronics’ market cap reportedly slid to a 9-year low of 345.1 trillion won ($252 billion) as the chipmaker struggles to capitalize on AI-led demand.
SK Hynix, on the other hand, has become a leader in high bandwidth memory — a type of DRAM used in artificial intelligence servers — supplying to clients such as AI behemoth Nvidia.
A report from Counterpoint Research in April said that SK Hynix had captured 70% of the HBM market by revenue share in the first quarter.
This HBM strength helped it overtake Samsung in the overall DRAM market for the first time ever, with a 36% global market share as compared to Samsung’s 34%.
OpenAI has been awarded a $200 million contract to provide the U.S. Defense Department with artificial intelligence tools.
The department announced the one-year contract on Monday, months after OpenAI said it would collaborate with defense technology startup Anduril to deploy advanced AI systems for “national security missions.”
“Under this award, the performer will develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains,” the Defense Department said. It’s the first contract with OpenAI listed on the Department of Defense’s website.
Anduril received a $100 million defense contract in December. Weeks earlier, OpenAI rival Anthropic said it would work with Palantir and Amazon to supply its AI models to U.S. defense and intelligence agencies.
Sam Altman, OpenAI’s co-founder and CEO, said in a discussion with OpenAI board member and former National Security Agency leader Paul Nakasone at a Vanderbilt University event in April that “we have to and are proud to and really want to engage in national security areas.”
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Defense Department specified that the contract is with OpenAI Public Sector LLC, and that the work will mostly occur in the National Capital Region, which encompasses Washington, D.C., and several nearby counties in Maryland and Virginia.
Meanwhile, OpenAI is working to build additional computing power in the U.S. In January, Altman appeared alongside President Donald Trump at the White House to announce the $500 billion Stargate project to build AI infrastructure in the U.S.
The new contract will represent a small portion of revenue at OpenAI, which is generating over $10 billion in annualized sales. In March, the company announced a $40 billion financing round at a $300 billion valuation.
In April, Microsoft, which supplies cloud infrastructure to OpenAI, said the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency has authorized the use of the Azure OpenAI service with secret classified information.