Square’s Cash App was absolutely one of the big stories from the quarter. From Foolish contributor Adam Levy:
Square (NYSE:SQ) released some interesting details about Cash App – its peer-to-peer payments app – with its fourth-quarter earnings results. The headline is that it now has 7 million monthly active users. For reference, PayPal’s (NASDAQ:PYPL) Venmo – Cash App’s chief competitor – had about 10 million users last August, according to an estimate from Verto Analytics.
Beyond that, CFO Sarah Friar told analysts that one-third of transactions on the app are already monetized. That’s primarily led by purchases on the Cash Card – a debit card Square released last year that’s linked to user’s Cash App account. Square is able to collect interchange fees on transactions using the Cash Card. Cash App is also monetized through instant deposit for customers who can’t wait a few days for their payments to hit their bank account.
Cash App started the year around 123rd in the App Store. It ended the year around No. 35, and it was the No. 1 finance app in the fourth quarter. Here’s how Square’s Cash App went from a distant second to running neck-and-neck with Venmo.
Read more at https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/28/squares-cash-app-k…
Matt
Long SQ
MasterCard (MA), PayPal (PYPL), Skechers (SKX) and Square (SQ) Ticker Guide
See all my holdings at http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFCochrane/info.aspx
29 Likes
Very interesting Matt, thanks.
Saul
Very interesting
I agree, Saul. It seems every quarter or so, they highlight a new part of the business in the shareholder letter and conference call that they had previously commented very little on. Last year, they did this with Caviar and Square Capital. This quarter they finally broke out numbers for Square Cash and it seems the app is growing quite nicely. The debit card that goes with the app is a nice touch. Just a different part of the business model that was little-mentioned before.
Matt
Long SQ
MasterCard (MA), PayPal (PYPL), Skechers (SKX) and Square (SQ) Ticker Guide
See all my holdings at http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFCochrane/info.aspx
8 Likes
I like SQ… but to supplant Venmo is fantasy. It won’t happen. And bitcoin? That is just noise. Serious crypto folk have no need for Square Cash.
Interesting conjecture though.
🆁🅶🅱
Good post on SQ Matt, thanks!
Like you I own SQ and PYPL and instead of Mastercard the competition…VISA.
There is a lot of movement and disruption in this field right now apparently. A huge growth are both here and abroad.
One fairly specific question where are you on SQ vs PYPL, I love them both but not convinced I need to be in both. Is square on the move here to eat into some paypal do you think?
More generally how solid of ground are the credit card companies on and where is this industry going to be in 5 or 7 years? Ideas…
thanks all…
5 Likes
Cash App started the year around 123rd in the App Store. It ended the year around No. 35, and it was the No. 1 finance app in the fourth quarter. Here’s how Square’s Cash App went from a distant second to running neck-and-neck with Venmo.
I’m sure that SQ’s foray into Bitcoin attracted a lot of people to Square’s CashApp. During the last 4 months also every person with whom I talked about investing asked me what I thought about Bitcoin. Mostly these were people who are not sophisticated investors. SQ offered people who us CashApp a way to buy and sell Bitcoin. I think it was a brilliant move by SQ to attract people to CashApp.
Chris
6 Likes
I’d be very interested to see the DAU For Square Cash vs Venmo, just as a point of reference. Guess we won’t get to see that anytime soon though.