Buy now-pay later use in the U.S. climbed to an all-time high during the 2021 holiday season, but its novelty may have begun to wear thin.
According to a Jan. 12 Bank of America analyst report, total U.S. buy now-pay later (BNPL) app downloads for the top operators Affirm, Afterpay, Klarna and Zip (formerly Quadpay) rose to 3.47 million in December.
Though the December figure shows a 20% year-over-year (YOY) increase, which was higher than the 14% YOY rate for November, the rate of increase is slowing compared with a more than doubling (131% increase) between January and June last year, according to the note.
