Square's earnings show it can grow beyond just mobile payments

Seattle

SQUARE Inc is showing some early signs of success in expanding its business beyond just selling mobile credit-card readers to food trucks and dog walkers.

Chief executive officer Jack Dorsey - who also runs Twitter Inc - has been pushing to get small businesses to use Square's add-on services for managing inventory, securing cash advances and analysing sales data. Bigger merchants are also signing up, the company said in its first earnings report as a public company. The shares climbed after fourth-quarter sales rose 49 per cent to US$374 million, beating the average analysts' estimate of US$345 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.