Global fintech payments firm Airwallex has announced a 1,213% y-o-y revenue growth for the 1H2023 and a 1,015% - or 11x - growth in total transaction volume for its Singapore business.
The fintech firm, which was founded in Australia in 2015, has also named Singapore as its new global headquarters on Nov 9. Kai Wu, Airwallex’s chief revenue officer and APAC executive general manager cites the city-state as a gateway to the Asia Pacific region amidst its plans to expand to other Southeast Asian countries in the future.
Airwallex’s major investors include the likes of Tencent Holdings, Lone Pine Capital, and Sequoia China, now known as Peak XV.
Speaking at a media briefing on Nov 9, Wu says that the largest proportion of revenue comes from its suite of offering for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), including online payments acceptance, global accounts, borderless cards, and a suite of application programming interfaces (APIs), among others.
Airwallex says that the growth it has experienced in Singapore is on the backing of the country recovering from the pandemic, and the reopening of the world. The fintech says that its top transaction categories for Singapore are in ads, computer software, hotels, business services, and travel operators/agencies.
However, the chief revenue officer says that its Singapore business is still not yet profitable, as its growth trajectory is still in an “early stage”. He anticipates that profitability for Singapore will be achieved in one to two years time.
See also: Asia Pacific VC flow into fintechs dropped 27% y-o-y in 2023: S&P Global Market Intelligence
Globally, the firm recorded US$60 billion ($81.37 billion) in annual transaction volume, and a 120% y-o-y increase in revenue for the first half of 2023. It boasts having 100,000 customers worldwide.
In an interview last October, Jack Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Airwallex said that the company targets to be cash flow positive by the end of 2023. Presently, the fintech says that it is on track to achieve that target, as Wu notes that he is “very confident” that they will be able to meet that target.
When questioned about plans to go public, Wu says that the firm is ready for listing from a financial perspective, but is awaiting the improvement of external market conditions before announcing concrete plans.
