The Zip Co Ltd (ASX: ZIP) share price has been one to watch over the past year. But for all the wrong reasons. ASX growth shares have had a tough 2022 and a tough 12 months. But Zip has been among the highest-profile casualties of the market's newfound scepticism of unprofitable shares.
Not even ZIp's new status as ASX's largest listed buy now, pay later (BNPL) share has saved it from investors' wroth.
As it stands today, the Zip share price has lost close to 5% so far over the month of October. But that pales against the horror year Zip investors have endured. The company is down a calamitous 85% over 2022 thus far. It's down an even more depressing 91% over the past 12 months.
As my Fool colleague Monica pointed out earlier this month, if an investor has invested $1,000 into Zip back at its February 2021 all-time high of $12.35, they would only have $51.60 left to their name.
But a few bad chapters don't make an unreadable book. So could the worst be behind the Zip share price this October?
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What's next for the Zip share price?
The company has indeed enjoyed some more positive news of late. Last week, Zip released a well-received quarterly trading update. For the company's first quarter, Zip announced that transaction volumes rose 15% to $2.2 billion.
Transaction numbers were up an even better 33% to 19.6 million, while revenues increased by 19% to $163.2 million. Pleasingly, customer numbers surged 50% to 12 million, with active customers up 17% to 7.4 million. The number of merchants was also on the rise, clocking a 70% increase to 94,100.
The company now expects its $140.7 million in cash and liquidity to see it through to profitability.
At the time of this update, the Zip share price spiked 13% – although it has since cooled off.
Unfortunately, brokers still haven't been showering the company with love. As my Fool colleague Bernd reported earlier this month, brokers at Macquarie are still rating the Zip share price as underperform. Macquarie has a 12-month share price target of 60 cents on Zip. That's below the last share price of 63 cents.
Saying that, this rating did come before Zip's well-received quarterly update. So perhaps that will change a few minds. But we shall have to wait and see.
At the last Zip share price, this ASX BNPL share has a market capitalisation of $444.58 million.
