Say Shares rose as much as 16% in after-hours trading Wednesday after the buy-now, pay-later loan provider reported better-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter results.

Here’s how the company fared, compared to LSEG analysts’ consensus estimates.

• Loss per share: 14 cents adjusted versus 51 cents expected
• Revenue: $659 million versus the expected $604 million

Affirm reported gross merchandise volume (GMV) of $7.2 billion, up 31% from the previous year. GMV is a key industry metric that helps measure the total value of transactions during the reporting period.

Revenue rose 48% from a year earlier and Affirm’s net loss narrowed to $45.1 million from $206 million in the year-ago period. The company’s number of active merchants topped 300,000 and active consumers also grew 19% to 18.6 million.

Affirm CEO Max Levchin said in a note to shareholders that the company set a new goal of achieving operating profitability on a GAAP basis by the fourth fiscal quarter of 2025.

For the current quarter, Affirm expects revenue of between $640 million and $670 million. Analysts polled by LSEG had expected revenue of $625 million.

Affirm shares had fallen 36% so far this year at Wednesday’s close but have been trending higher lately, up 12% in August. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell signaled Friday that lower interest rates could come as soon as September.

Bank of America analysts said in a note last month that rate cuts would be beneficial for Affirm’s funding costs and profits on loan sales. The company imposed a 36% APR cap on its merchants for loans, up from 30% previously, and the analysts said this “should continue to be a tailwind for yields and GMV growth.”

Analysts said Affirm’s new relationship with Apple In addition to other associations with Amazon and Shopify They’re helping out, too. In June, Affirm and Apple announced plans to let U.S. users of Apple Pay on iPhones and iPads apply for loans directly through Affirm.

Affirm also plans to launch in the UK later this year.

Gina Sanchez, chief market strategist at Lido Advisors, told CNBC’s “The Exchange” on Wednesday that slowing consumption could make it difficult for the company to hit its profitability targets.

“This is a buy-now-pay-later company in an environment where consumption is falling,” Sanchez said. “You have to be prepared for a fairly slow period that could come in the first half of 2025 until the rate cuts really start to take effect, because that’s the reality of being in a consumer market that requires volume consumption.”

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