Square - statistics & facts
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Square is a mobile payment company focused on credit card processing and merchant solutions. The company was founded in 2009 by Jack Dorsey – who is also Twitter’s co-founder and CEO – and Jim McKelvey, and aims to make commerce easy. They started from the principle that every business should be able to make credit cards transactions. Over the years, the company has developed both software and hardware products, as well as business solutions to facilitate commerce. Square’s annual net revenue reached the 4.71 billion U.S. dollars mark in 2019, up from just over 200 million U.S. dollars in 2012. In the fourth quarter of 2019 alone, the company generated more than 1.31 billion U.S. dollars in net revenue. Despite these promising figures, Square's annual net income has not been positive so far and the only reason the company reported a 375.45 million U.S. dollar net income in 2019 was due to gains from its sale of its Caviar food delivery business in Q4 2019. In the fourth quarter of 2019, Square’s net income amounted to 390.94 million U.S. dollars, up from 29.4 million U.S. dollars in the preceding quarter.
Transactions accounted for the largest share of Square’s annual net revenue, followed by subscriptions and services-based revenue. As the company started to process more transactions, Square's gross payment volume began to increase. In 2012, the San Francisco-based company had a gross payment volume of approximately 6.5 billion U.S. dollars. This figure increased to 106.24 billion U.S. dollars in 2019. Besides the increase in transaction volume, specialists affirm that both retention of existing customers and successful product launches have driven the growth of Square’s gross payment volume in the last few years. As of December 2019, the service industry accounted for 15 percent of Square’s gross payment volume. Food and drink related sellers were ranked first, accounting for 26 percent of payment share.
Mobile and digital payment is a rapidly growing market. Consumers in the United States are interested in many mobile payment services and activities. During a May 2019 survey, nearly half of of U.S. consumers said that they were interested in using their phone to make cashless payments while grocery shopping, and a further 44 percent of respondents stated that they would be willing to make cashless payments at the gas station. However, consumers were still wary about the security of mobile payments - protection against fraud and lost or stolen devices was on the top of the list of improvements that would make U.S. users more willing to try mobile payments.
Transactions accounted for the largest share of Square’s annual net revenue, followed by subscriptions and services-based revenue. As the company started to process more transactions, Square's gross payment volume began to increase. In 2012, the San Francisco-based company had a gross payment volume of approximately 6.5 billion U.S. dollars. This figure increased to 106.24 billion U.S. dollars in 2019. Besides the increase in transaction volume, specialists affirm that both retention of existing customers and successful product launches have driven the growth of Square’s gross payment volume in the last few years. As of December 2019, the service industry accounted for 15 percent of Square’s gross payment volume. Food and drink related sellers were ranked first, accounting for 26 percent of payment share.
Mobile and digital payment is a rapidly growing market. Consumers in the United States are interested in many mobile payment services and activities. During a May 2019 survey, nearly half of of U.S. consumers said that they were interested in using their phone to make cashless payments while grocery shopping, and a further 44 percent of respondents stated that they would be willing to make cashless payments at the gas station. However, consumers were still wary about the security of mobile payments - protection against fraud and lost or stolen devices was on the top of the list of improvements that would make U.S. users more willing to try mobile payments.
