Skip to main content

PayPal cites ‘death of cash’ as firm posts record earnings

PayPal shares jumped nearly 5% after market close on Wednesday as the payment giant announced record revenues of $5.26 billion for the second quarter, and said it added 1.7 million new merchants during this period.

In a call discussing the results, PayPal executives said society has reached an “inflection point” when it comes to the “death of cash,” and noted that 70% of consumers now fear for their health when it comes to paying in stores.

“Consumers no longer want to handle cash or any forms of payment that require physical touch at checkout,” said Schulman.

He also cited an explosion in the use of PayPal-owned Venmo in the second quarter, saying the popular payment app now has over 60 million users. Schulman noted that Venmo usage had long revolved around social occasions—such as splitting the check at a restaurant—but that it’s now being used for a much broader range of activity. This is consistent with a recent report that use of payment apps of all sorts has surged during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the company says it is seeing an explosion in online payment from new cohorts and industries, notably seniors and online fitness services.

“The pace of e-commerce has accelerated by several years in a single quarter,” said PayPal CFO John Rainey.

In response to these trends, the company says it is investing heavily to improve its digital wallet, which it hopes will become a daily part of life for many consumers. PayPal is focused in particular on promoting the use of QR codes by merchants and Venmo users.

The company is also hoping to begin wringing more money from Venmo—which has brought PayPal many users but little in the way of income—in part through products like direct deposit and a credit card.

PayPal’s blowout quarter also led the company to reinstate financial guidance for the rest of the year after, like many other companies, it withdrew guidance due to the pandemic.

On Wednesday, the company said it expected revenue to grow by 25% over the rest of the year, and earnings per share to swell by 45% (25% on a non-GAAP basis).

One topic the PayPal executives did not discuss was cryptocurrency. The company is widely expect to make Bitcoin and other digital currencies available this year, in partnership with a startup called Paxos.

While they did not mention Bitcoin directly, Rainey may have alluded to it in citing the impending launch of “other financial services I won’t go into any detail about today.”

PayPal shares traded near $185 as of 7pm ET after opening the day around $179.

More must-read finance coverage from Fortune:



from Fortune https://ift.tt/2X9JZvJ
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Photo finish: Crashing sales force Olympus to sell iconic camera business

Sometimes, the vicissitudes of capitalism force companies to exit the businesses for which they’re best known. Olympus, once a leading light in the photography industry, is now joining that list. On Wednesday, the company said it planned to quit its 84-year-old camera business. The imaging giant, known for its once-pervasive digital cameras, agreed to sell off the declining unit by year’s end. Japan Industrial Partners, a private equity firm best known for buying Sony’s struggling Vaio computer line in 2014, agreed to purchase the business. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. A glance at Olympus’s financial statements provides all the rationale for the divestiture; as at rival manufacturers, camera sales have plummeted over the past decade. For the fiscal year ended March 31, Olympus’s camera unit declined 10% versus the year prior to  ¥43.6 billion, or $407 million. The unit’s sales have collapsed by three-quarters from a decade ago, when the company brought in ¥175 billion, or $
Post a Comment
Read more

WHO says common steroids can slash death risk for the sickest coronavirus patients

Our mission to help you navigate the new normal is fueled by subscribers. To enjoy unlimited access to our journalism,  subscribe today . An old drug can learn new tricks during the coronavirus pandemic. That’s the main takeaway from the World Health Organization (WHO) in a new analysis of corticosteroids—a class of drugs which have existed for dozens of years and are far cheaper than new, experimental COVID treatments in development—suggesting that drugs like dexamethasone can slash the chances of COVID-19 related deaths by as much as 35% in the sickest patients. The WHO analysis of coronavirus drugs encompassed seven separate studies. And while an analysis of this sort—what’s called a “meta-analysis”—isn’t as rigorous as other types of trials like a randomized controlled study, the data are compelling. Corticosteroids have a very different action mechanism from many of the other coronavirus drugs in development. COVID-19 is a peculiar disease. Some who have been infected may be
Post a Comment
Read more