Lightspeed Gross Payments Volume Jumps 69% With Unified Payments Initiative

Digital commerce firm Lightspeed continues to see success from its unified payments platform.

The combined point-of-sale (POS) and payments platform, which debuted last year, helped increase the company’s gross payments volume (GPV) by 69% this year, management said during an earnings call Thursday (Feb. 8). 

Revenues were up 27% year over year, at $239.7 million, surpassing the company’s outlook. Lightspeed’s net loss and adjusted EBITDA improved as well, at $40.2 million and $3.6 million, the earnings report said. 

Lightspeed launched unified payments in Europe and the Asia Pacific (APAC) during the quarter and is continuing to educate clients about the offering, CEO JP Chauvet said.

“As expected, converting customers to payments in Europe and APAC will likely take longer than in North America,” he told analysts. “We are one of the first players to unify software with payments in Europe, particularly in continental Europe, and so there is more effort involved in educating our customer base.”

Management also noted that the emphasis on unified payments in Europe helped contribute to a quarter in which subscription revenue was essentially flat, as its account management team was focused on the new effort. 

“We expect that by mid fiscal 2025, the majority of our account managers will return to their traditional roles of selling software modules to existing customers,” said Asha Bakshani, the company’s chief financial officer. “And as a result, we expect software revenue growth to benefit in fiscal 2025.”

Last month saw Lightspeed introduce a series of features and updates for businesses in the retail and hospitality industries. 

For example, there’s Lightspeed Tableside, a portable POS and payment processing device designed especially for restaurants. This tool lets servers instantly process orders, reducing wait times, boosting table turnover and increasing customer satisfaction.

Looking ahead, Chauvet noted the “massive opportunity” in the company’s space, as many of its target customers are still using dated legacy systems.

“We believe the majority of these customers will adopt cloud-based offerings in the next few years,” he said. “We are well positioned to benefit from this shift and with payments now tightly integrated into the software platform and mandatory for all eligible customers, we believe our unit economics will only improve.”