Square Inc. sales more than doubled last quarter, underscoring a surge in demand for Bitcoin trades, stock purchases and other financial transactions by customers cooped up during the global pandemic. The stock rose 6 per cent in after-hours trading.

Revenue leaped 140 per cent to US$3.03 billion, far surpassing the US$2.05 billion average analyst estimate, according to a Bloomberg survey.

The San Francisco-based payments company pointed to growth for its peer-to-peer payments app, Cash App, as one of the strong points of its business. The app, which lets users send money to friends but also buy stocks and store money like a bank account, generated revenue of US$2.07 billion in the quarter. Most of that revenue was from Bitcoin transactions, the company said.

Gross payment volume, a metric that tracks how much Square processes in total transactions, climbed 12 per cent year-over-year after being down 15 per cent in the second quarter.