Affirm stock surges 12% as CEO Levchin notes continued consumer strength

Affirm stock popped 12% Friday after the buy now, pay later firm beat Wall Street's expectations across the board in its fiscal fourth-quarter results. The stock was already up 31% this year heading into the report, outpacing the Nasdaq's 12% gain.

CEO Max Levchin told CNBC on "Money Movers" Friday that the company is "firing on all pistons."

Earnings came in at 20 cents a share and nearly doubled analyst expectations, with revenue also topping estimates at $876 million, up 33% from a year earlier.

Net income was $69.2 million for the quarter, compared with a loss of $45.1 million in the same period last year.

"You can see that consumers are transacting more and more frequently," Levchin told CNBC. "The consumer growth itself, the merchant growth, all these things compound to just drive usage more and more."

The firm also offered higher guidance for fiscal 2026 and upbeat guidance for the current quarter.

Levchin noted strength in the consumer and momentum in the U.S. on an investor call Thursday.

"We feel quite excellent about our ability to get paid back on time," he said.

Going into the print, the big question was whether losing Walmart to rival Klarna would drag on results. Instead, Affirm's key volume metric jumped 44% from the year-ago quarter and beat the street by nearly a billion dollars, helped by its partnerships with Shopify and Amazon.

Affirm, which went public in 2021, faces intensifying competition in e-commerce as Klarna gains share and prepares for an IPO — even as Affirm deepens ties with major retailers, including a deal with Apple last year.

Affirm's business is closely tied to consumer spending, with its online loans popular among sellers of electronics, apparel and travel.

After contracting in the first quarter on an import surge ahead of President Donald Trump's April tariffs, the U.S. economy expanded 3.3% in the second quarter, stronger than initially estimated, as consumers and businesses held up despite tariff volatility.

The company has also been making a big push to win share at the point of sale with the Affirm Card — its biggest bet for driving broader usage.

That strategy is gaining traction: card GMV grew 132% to $1.2 billion, active cardholders nearly doubled to 2.3 million, and in-store spend surged 187%. Zero-percent APR loans more than tripled and now account for about 14% of card volume.

Levchin downplayed concerns about 0% APR loans, with 50% of new users entering the Affirm ecosystem through the "compelling" rate.

"These 0% deals are still underwritten every time," he told CNBC on Friday. "If we think the person cannot afford to borrow money, we will very sadly and compassionately tell them, 'Hey, this isn't for you. It's not going to work out.' "

Levchin also highlighted artificial intelligence as a bright spot, noting that early deployments of Affirm's new AdaptAI system have already delivered an average 5% lift in merchant volume — underscoring the company's long-standing use of machine learning to power credit scoring and checkout optimization.