The Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) industry witnessed exponential growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, led by surge in digital payments. Since inflation and interest rates increased in June 2022, the BNPL-related social media discussions’ peak started to fade. , the social media share of voice (Twitter and Reddit) focused on BNPL revealed that Apple Pay Ltd. topped the list in terms of the highest conversation volume with 19% share of voice among the top 10 most mentioned BNPL companies during the last 12 months (1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023), reveals the Social Media Analytics Platform of GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

The remaining top nine mentioned companies are Afterpay Touch Group Ltd with 18% share of voice, Klarna Bank AB (17%), PayPal Holdings Inc (16%), Affirm Holdings Inc (10%), Mastercard Inc (7%), Sezzle Inc (5%), Mondu (3%), Openpay Pty Ltd (3%), and Camden Town Technologies Pvt Ltd (2%).

Shreyasee Majumder, Social Media Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Influencer sentiment around BNPL saw 22% decline among social media discussions during the same period over the previous 12 months. Influencers opine that consumers were earlier inclined towards BNPL when rates of interest were at low levels and also because of its simplicity and ease of access to credit. However, the combined effect of rising inflation and interest rates has a detrimental effect on BNPL providers due to reduced consumer spending and rising repayment rates.”

Apple Pay dominated conversations around BNPL during the last one year and saw more than 130% growth over the previous 12 months. The discussions around Apple Pay spiked during the month of June 2022, after Apple Inc introduced a BNPL functionality incorporated within its Apple Pay service. Influencer conversations about the announcement turned out to be positive as a result of this logical extension of the company’s approach with regard to promoting Apple Pay usage.

The second most mentioned payment transaction company was Afterpay Touch Group Ltd, which contributed 18% share of voice among the top 10 firms in BNPL discussions. The conversations among influencers spiked when Afterpay unveiled an all-new partnership with Expedia Group, an online destination for booking travel. Among the 10 companies, PayPal experienced the most significant year-on-year drop in conversations of more than 70%.