Mobile payments platform Boku sees users and profits soar after strengthening links with digital giants
Mobile payments platform Boku has seen a surge in users and profit after strengthening links with the world's largest digital companies.
The company said its total payment volume (TPV) was up 153 per cent to $1.5bn (£1.17bn) and that its monthly active users grew to 10.3 million – a 117 per cent increase on the first half of 2017.
Its mobile billing offering is now used by a number of the world's largest digital companies, including Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Netflix, Sony and Spotify.
It reported that its account connections with those major companies had also risen.
The technology enables people to pay for goods and services using their mobile phone, as an alternative to credit and debit cards.
Its underlying earnings for the first half of the year were $2.5m – compared with a $2.8m loss in the same period in 2017.
It has also recently announced plans to expand with a 'mobile identity' platform.
Chief executive, Jon Prideaux, said: “By any measure the first half of 2018 has been a successful one for Boku.
“Impressively, this growth has been achieved with the cost of regular operations staying stable and the only cost increases coming from new investment in growth areas, especially 'Mobile Identity'.
Prideaux said large tech firms were turning to Boku to overcome the problem of getting users on board with paying digitally.
He said it reportedly cost Netflix $40-45 to acquire a new user outside the US but that Boku's 'one-tap-to-register' technology solved this.