An earlier version of this article misstated the FactSet consensus estimate for total payment volume. The estimate was $163 billion.
PayPal Holdings Inc. beat first-quarter earnings estimates Wednesday, while also releasing active-account data on its Venmo service for the first time.
The company reported net income of $667 million, or 56 cents a share, up from $511 million, or 42 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Adjusted earnings per share rose to 78 cents from 57 cents a year earlier, and came in ahead of the FactSet consensus, which called for 68 cents a share in adjusted EPS. PayPal PYPL, +0.30% saw an EPS benefit of 8 cents during the quarter, related to its strategic investment in MercadoLibre Inc. MELI, -2.80% .
Revenue for the period rose to $4.13 billion, in line with estimates. A year ago, the company reported $3.69 billion in quarterly revenue.
Total payment volume (TPV) climbed to $161 billion, as PayPal added 9.3 million new active accounts, bringing its total up to 277 million. TPV came up a bit shy of consensus expectations for $163 billion. The company saw 38 transactions per active account over a trailing 12-month period, up 9% from a year ago.
EBay Inc. EBAY, +5.04% had negative TPV growth of 4% in the quarter and now represents 9.7% of the company’s overall TPV. A year ago, it made up 12.7%. EBay has been a controversial element of the PayPal story lately, both due to deteriorating fundamentals at the e-commerce marketplace as well as eBay’s ongoing efforts to relegate PayPal to a lesser role on its site as part of a “managed payments” initiative.
For the first time, PayPal announced active-account numbers for its Venmo peer-to-peer service. More than 40 million people used Venmo for at least one transaction in the last 12 months, the company said. Venmo processed $21 billion in TPV during the first quarter, representing 73% growth, while total peer-to-peer volume, which includes payments made through core PayPal, grew 41% to $42 billion.
PayPal issued a second-quarter revenue forecast of $4.3 billion to $4.34 billion and an adjusted EPS outlook of 68 cents to 70 cents. The company raised its full-year EPS outlook to $2.94 to $3.01, while reiterating its prior forecast on revenue and TPV. PayPal previously told investors to expect $2.84 to $2.91 in adjusted EPS and $17.75 billion to $18.1 billion in revenue.
Shares have risen 28% so far this year, as the S&P 500 SPX, -0.22% has gained 17%.