Haven't Bought StoneCo Yet? Consider This

If you've invested in any South American e-commerce stocks, regional leader MercadoLibre is likely in your portfolio. But what about Brazil's digital payments leader, StoneCo (NASDAQ: STNE)? If you've been delaying a purchase of this smaller upstart, it just provided you with 69,700 reasons to reconsider.

E-commerce and digital payments became increasingly important in Brazil during the pandemic -- just as they did here in the U.S. Though actual economic activity has slowed down (as of this writing, Brazil is still reporting record numbers of new daily COVID-19 cases and will soon pass 1 million overall), StoneCo has been adding merchants to its platform at a rapid pace.  

Specifically, it added 69,700 net new customers in the fourth quarter alone, the most it has ever recorded in a single quarter. It ended 2020 with 652,600 merchants (excluding micro-merchants that are clients of its TON subsidiary), a 36% increase from 2019. While the percentage increase is lower than the company achieved prior to the pandemic, it should dispel investors' concerns about the impacts that business closures in Brazil might have on StoneCo. As for TON, it added another 114,000 active micro-merchants, a 75% increase from the last quarter alone.

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Source Fool.com