PayPal reports Q2 earnings rise

For the quarter, PayPal gained market share, expanded its customer base, deepened engagement with customers and delivered on its financial commitments. The company also announced a long-term partnership agreement with Visa.

Financial highlights for the second quarter include:

• Revenue growth of 15% to $2.650 billion, or 19% on a foreign currency neutral (FX-neutral) basis
• Revenue growth on a non-GAAP pro forma basis of 16%, or 19% on a non-GAAP pro forma FX-neutral basis
• GAAP operating margin of 14% with non-GAAP operating margin of 20%
• GAAP earnings per diluted share (EPS) growth of 7% to $0.27, non-GAAP EPS growth of 11% on a pro forma basis to $0.36
• Operating cash flow of $696 million, free cash flow of $495 million
• Returned $300 million to stockholders, repurchasing 8 million shares of common stock

Operating highlights for the second quarter include:

• Active customer accounts of 188 million, up 11%
• 1.4 billion transactions processed, up 25%
• 29 payment transactions per active account on a trailing twelve-month basis, up 13%
• $86 billion in total payment volume (TPV), up 28% on a spot basis, and 29% on an FX-neutral basis

“We have a clear mission at PayPal. We want to democratize financial services and become an everyday, essential service for underserved consumers," said Dan Schulman, President and CEO of PayPal. "We want to use our platform and services to enable merchants to fully capitalize on the move to mobile and digital commerce. Our strong financial performance is one sign of the tangible and consistent progress we've made towards achieving these goals. Our agreement with Visa enhances our capabilities, offers the potential to establish new contexts for our consumers and merchants, and lays the foundation for additional partnerships.”

PayPal and Visa Enter Partnership to Extend Customer Choice

PayPal and Visa announced a strategic partnership to expand their long-standing relationship that will result in an improved and more seamless shopping experience and greater choice in how consumers pay. This agreement is a significant step towards offering greater customer choice and flexibility for PayPal's customers.

PayPal will also gain access to Visa’s tokenization services, starting in the United States, for in-store PayPal transactions. This will expand acceptance for PayPal’s digital wallet to all physical retail locations where Visa contactless transactions are enabled. The partnership’s benefits will include greater accessibility and volumes for Visa payment instruments in the PayPal digital wallet.

PayPal also will ensure that data provided to issuers and their cardholders for Visa-funded transactions will be consistent with the information that each receives with a traditional Visa card transaction, providing greater transparency and enhancing payment system security.

The agreement affords PayPal certain economic incentives, including incentives for increased Visa volume, and greater long-term certainty on fees paid to Visa, and further removes the threat of any fees or Visa network rules being targeted solely at PayPal.

Gaining Market Share and New Merchant Customers

In the second quarter, PayPal gained market share and extended its leadership position. PayPal processed $86 billion in TPV, representing FX-neutral growth of 29%, which was substantially faster than the growth rate of e-commerce. Merchant services TPV grew 36% on an FX-neutral basis, and represented 83% of overall TPV for the quarter. PayPal processed $24 billion in mobile payment volume, up 56%, representing 28% of TPV for the quarter. Venmo, the company’s social payments platform, processed $3.9 billion of TPV, up 141%.

PayPal added notable new merchants to the platform, ending the quarter with 14.5 million active merchant accounts. The list of leading brands choosing PayPal now includes IKEA in multiple countries, Carnival Corporation, VKontakte, Talbot's, Cathay Pacific and Eventbrite.

Extending PayPal’s Customer Base and Deepening Engagement

As PayPal continues to grow larger and more relevant in customers' daily lives, the company demonstrated another strong quarter of customer acquisition, adding new consumers and merchants to the platform. The company grew its active account base by 11% in the second quarter, ending the quarter with 188 million active customer accounts.

Customers are engaged at higher levels than ever before. In the second quarter, the company processed 1.4 billion payment transactions, which translates to 29 payment transactions per active account, an increase from 26 transactions per active account in the same period last year.

Expanding Innovative Products

One Touch is the most rapidly adopted product in PayPal’s history. As of the end of the second quarter, more than 25 million consumer accounts have opted in to One Touch and more than two million merchants accounts have enabled the product.
PayPal also extended the Pay with Venmo pilot in the quarter to additional merchants including Parking Panda, Priv, Wish, Boxed, Hop Market and Poshmark. PayPal expects to expand the Venmo pilot to all of its Venmo users, and substantially more merchants later this year.

PayPal Working Capital continues to be an important product to engage merchants and support their growth. In the second quarter, PayPal Working Capital exceeded $2 billion in originations since the product launched in September 2013 and has now funded more than 90,000 small business merchants in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia.

Broadening PayPal's Global Reach

Xoom’s U.S. customers can now send money to 53 countries. Xoom continues to redefine global remittances through mobile technology, with 74% of transactions being made on a mobile device in the second quarter.

In the second quarter, PayPal also expanded the European rollout of the Vodafone wallet. Consumers in Spain and Italy can now tap and pay in stores, another example of how PayPal is committed to partnership and delivering consumer choice.

Other Selected Financial and Operational Results

Operating Margin - GAAP operating margin for the second quarter of 2016 decreased to 14.0%, compared to 17.3% for the same period last year. Non-GAAP operating margin decreased to 19.9%, compared to non-GAAP pro forma operating margin of 22.0% for the same period last year.

Taxes - The GAAP effective tax rate for the second quarter of 2016 was 15.0%, compared to 23.6% for the second quarter of 2015. The non-GAAP effective tax rate was 18.8%, compared to the non-GAAP pro forma effective tax rate of 21.9% for the second quarter of 2015.

Cash Flow - PayPal generated $696 million of operating cash flow and $495 million of free cash flow during the second quarter of 2016.

Cash, Cash Equivalents and Investments - PayPal’s cash, cash equivalents and investments totaled $6.2 billion at June 30, 2016.

2016 Financial Guidance

Full Year 2016

• PayPal raises full year 2016 revenue guidance to a range of $10.750 to $10.850 billion.
• PayPal expects revenue to grow 16% - 17% at current spot rates and 19% - 20% on an FX-neutral basis.
• PayPal expects GAAP earnings per diluted share in the range of $1.11 - $1.14 and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share in the range of $1.47 - $1.50.
• Estimated non-GAAP amounts above for the twelve months ending December 31, 2016, reflect adjustments of approximately $585 - $615 million, primarily including the following items: stock-based compensation expense, employer payroll taxes on stock-based compensation, and amortization of acquired intangible assets.

Third Quarter 2016

• PayPal expects revenue to grow 16% - 18% at current spot rates and 19% - 21% on an FX-neutral basis, to a range of $2.620 to $2.670 billion.
• PayPal expects GAAP earnings per diluted share in the range of $0.25 - $0.27 and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share in the range of $0.33 - $0.35.
• Estimated non-GAAP amounts above for the three months ending September 30, 2016, reflect adjustments of approximately $140 - $160 million, primarily including the following items: stock-based compensation expense, employer payroll taxes on stock-based compensation, and amortization of acquired intangible assets.

Guidance for full year 2016 revenue growth rates represent year-over-year comparisons versus non-GAAP pro forma measures. Please see "Non-GAAP Financial Measures" and "Non-GAAP Measures of Financial Performance" for important additional information.