Oct. 27 at 10:37 AM
$KLAR
$AFRM $SEZL $XYZ
Klarna is chasing a massive opportunity. It is not just a BNPL app anymore. It is evolving into a global, AI-powered financial platform with bank-level capabilities. The long-term potential is enormous.
European haters like to joke in bad faith that Klarna CEO is trying to be the next Elon Musk. They act like comparing him to one of the most successful innovators on the planet is some kind of insult. They do it because Klarna is not playing by the old European banking rulebook. Instead, Klarna is actively replacing it. Traditional banks are scrambling to stay relevant while Klarna uses real transaction data and real AI to make smarter lending decisions at a global level. They laugh because they are scared of what happens when someone refuses to wait for permission. Nothing about what Seb is building is imitation. It is leadership at a scale Europe rarely produces.
The Walmart partnership is proof of Klarna’s ability to win the biggest retail relationships. Klarna is now the exclusive BNPL provider across Walmart U.S., replacing Affirm . Seb’s admiration for Sam Walton’s legacy highlights how aligned their visions are for making commerce more accessible.
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This quarter Klarna has:
1) been fully implemented into Apple pay.
2) been fully implemented into Stripe (40% market share as payment gate) - HUGE
3) been exclusively implemented as Walmart BNPL - HUGE 4) been implemented into Allegro (only expansion) - but huge ecommerce giant - that wants to conquer central/ eastern Europe - HUGE
5) got partnership with Google (alongside Affirm)
6) started dominating Google play (18% growth rate in 60 days)
7) been fully implemented into Qatar airways (17 markets) - HUGE
8) reached Klarna card 1M US sign-ups
9) rolled out Klarna card into UK
10) announced deliquency rate drops
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Fact check:
- Klarna deliquencies are highly outperforming typical banks (currently approx .88%) vs. banks average 2.77%
- Majority of the revenue comes from merchants.
- Quantitative easing - Confirmed - Extremely bullish
- Inflation - Extremely bullish (stable for now 2.5ish)
- Rate decrease - Confirmed - Extremely bullish
- Retail YoY - high increase (both EU and US) - Extremely bullish
- eCommerce YoY - high increase (both EU and US) - Extremely bullish
- Diversified across multiple countries
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Why will Klarna win BNPL space:
1) Built on AI first - with a major partnership with OpenAI (back in 2022)
2) Klarna has billions in transaction data, 8+ years of purchase patterns
3) Klarna is "active" in 26 countries; however, is top 50 app in 56 countries and is available in 239 countries with 89 languages supported.
4) 790k merchants - Klarna is adding approximately ~1,600-1,700 merchants per day ~70 merchants per hour ~1 merchant every ~50 seconds
5) Q4 2024 expansion wave - 4 new markets (Slovenia #22, Croatia #37, Latvia #49, Bulgaria #66).
6) Better underwriting than credit bureaus. Personalized offers = higher conversion
7) Data turned into AI-driven lending algorithm = margin expansion, lower defaults.
8) (110M-120M high prob. est.) users → attracts merchants → attracts more users. Virtuous cycle established.
9) Knows how to dominate markets - can get its hands dirty.
10) Knows how to merge with other BNPL companies
11) #1 in 130+ keywords
12) Huge market diversification - the more USA is "isolating" itself the higher advantage for diversification 13) Blocks seems to be declining
14) Affirm US-focused - double-edged sword
15) Paypal broad payments (diluted focus) - starting to lose market share in many markets across the board
16) Klarna is a global BNPL platform with multiple "won" markets
17) Digital Payments Surge: 70% of shopping now mobile. Klarna = mobile-first BNPL.
18) E-commerce Growth: EU e-commerce growing 12% YoY.
19) Gen Z Spending Habits: 67% prefer BNPL over credit cards. Klarna = preferred platform
20) Inflation Impact: High prices → need for payment splits. BNPL becomes necessity to avg. down, not luxury. 21) Credit Crunch: Banks tightening lending → BNPL fills gap with lower barriers
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(Klarna dominance Google Play Data Source: http://androidrank.org/ (Updated October 5, 2025) -- probably highly unreliable - but can hint at something. ) Download estimates are highly uncertain. Based on reviews and historical data, we could be seeing up to 3.6M daily downloads, which feels unrealistically high. A more reasonable estimate might be around 1M per day, although that still does not fully explain the massive spike in new reviews.
There may be a major advertising push underway that we have not identified yet. A large share of recent reviews appear to come from U.S. users.
