Klarna's global gross merchandise volume or GMV continued to grow in 2024, increasing by over ** billion USD between Q2 2023 and Q2 2024. GMV measures the value of the products sold through the Klarna platform, and is essentially the same as the company's sales value. From these sales, Klarna take commissions and merchants fees to make up their revenue stream. The Swedish BNPL provider has been looking at profitability for a while. Klarna's revenue — like the GMV — increased in the first quarter of 2022, but the company's profit did not. It is likely to go for an IPO in the United States in 2025, although there is no exact confirmation when this would happen.

In 2024, eight out of 10 top global buy now, pay later (BNPL) markets worldwide were in northwestern Europe as consumers looked for new e-commerce payment methods. The market share of BNPL services in domestic e-commerce payments in both Sweden and Germany was around ten times higher than the same market share in global e-commerce payments. The popularity of Sweden's BNPL provider Klarna may be at the heart of this, one of the most used online payment methods among German consumers in 2023. Is BNPL still growing? The global buy now, pay later market size will increase by nearly 450 billion USD between 2021 and 2026. This would mean a further acceleration of growth. Whether the cost of living crisis impacts these figures is not immediately clear. Some believe it may drive consumers to use buy now, pay later more often. On the other hand, a global economic downturn led Klarna's private-market valuation to fall by 85 percent in 2022. Consequently, the company laid off 700 employees. Brand preference varies per country The country of origin of a BNPL brand can impact its adoption. Estimates based on website tracking and the technologies used within them reveal that merchants from Sweden, and especially its neighboring countries, offered Klarna relatively more often than anywhere else. This extended beyond the Nordics. Merchants from Australia and New Zealand were more likely to offer Afterpay - which comes from Australia - than e-commerce websites from other parts of the world. The United States is home to several major brands like Affirm, Sezzle, and Zip. These face competition from PayPal.