The Swedish FinTech revealed that milestone Monday (May 19) as it released its quarterly earnings, which showed revenues up 15%, reaching $701 million.
Klarna also logged a $92 million pretax loss for the first quarter, up from $47 million a year ago.
In its earnings report, the company cited issues such as share-based payments expense, “severance-related restructuring costs,” and expenses connected to its initial public offering (IPO), which is now on hold.
Klarna Co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said in a news release that the quarter had also seen the company secure partnerships with the likes of Walmart and DoorDash, while bringing its collaboration with eBay — already launched in Europe — to the U.S.
“Our AI-first strategy is driving exceptional returns, we’re outpacing competitors, our merchant network is scaling rapidly, and our next-gen products are reshaping money management for millions,” Siemiatkowski said.
Since 2022, the company added, Klarna has cut its workforce by 40% thanks to its artificial intelligence (AI) deployment, while increasing its share of tech employees from 36% in 2022 to 52% in the first quarter of this year.
Klarna said 96% of its workers are daily AI users, which has helped the company fuel a 152% increase in revenue per employee since the first quarter of 2023.
“AI is slashing costs across the business, most noticeably in customer service, where costs per transaction have dropped by 40% since Q1’23 whilst maintaining customer satisfaction levels,” the news release said.
However, Siemiatkowski said recently that Klarna is embarking on a hiring effort to make sure customers always have the choice to speak with a human customer service rep.
Klarna took its IPO off the table, at least for the time being, last month in the wake of the U.S.’s imposition of new tariffs.
“Last month, the conventional wisdom had been that the Klarna kickoff would pave the way for other FinTechs to move ahead with their own IPOs,” PYMNTS wrote at the time.
In fact, another company that had planned to go public, Chime, has also delayed its listing after recently filing its confidential documents with the SEC.
Recent research by PYMNTS Intelligence estimates that Klarna commanded a 26.2% share of the U.S. pay-later market as of the end of last year, more than any other company.
The same research found that 128 American adults had used a BNPL product in the prior 12 months, with the country’s total BNPL transactions adding up to $175 billion.
