PayPal beat The Street when it reported fourth-quarter earnings after the bell on Wednesday. The global payments giant surpassed analyst expectations for both sales and profit. PayPal reported $3.71 billion in revenue on a foreign-exchange neutral basis, or 24% growth from the same period last year. Analysts were expecting $3.63 billion in revenue for the quarter. […]
PayPal beat The Street when it reported fourth-quarter earnings after the bell on Wednesday. The global payments giant surpassed analyst expectations for both sales and profit.
PayPal reported $3.71 billion in revenue on a foreign-exchange neutral basis, or 24% growth from the same period last year. Analysts were expecting $3.63 billion in revenue for the quarter.
Adjusted earnings per share were 55 cents, compared to the 52 cents that Wall Street forecast.
But shares later ticked down as much as 14% in after-hours trading, likely due to a guidance forecast that just missed the mark. PayPal is expecting its overall revenue for the year to be between $15 billion and $15.25 billion. The midpoint was beneath what analysts surveyed by Yahoo Finance had been forecasting, with $15.16 billion. Other estimates had been as high as $15.26 billion.
PayPal said its adjusted earnings per share was expected to fall between $2.24 and $2.30. Yahoo Finance analysts had been expecting $2.25.
The company also announced an agreement with Synchrony Financial. Synchrony is acquiring PayPal’s consumer credit receivable portfolio, worth $6.4 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of the year.
The company processed $131 billion in total payments volume for the fourth quarter, showcasing 32% growth.
PayPal has grown to 227 million active customer accounts, after adding 8.7 million for the quarter.
PayPal separated from eBay in 2015 and is currently the larger of the two companies, with a market cap of $103 billion. eBay is valued at $42 billion.
The two companies agreed to extend their partnership through July 2023, making PayPal the default payment option for eBay.
PayPal is also the owner of Venmo, the popular peer-to-peer payments platform. The app processed $10.4 billion in payments in just the fourth quarter alone.
Venmo’s overall growth for the year was 97%, processing $35 billion in payments in 2017.
